


Black Sails, Black Romance

by mtjester



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Lusus death, M/M, Pirate shinanigans, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-01-27 21:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1722815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtjester/pseuds/mtjester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not playing anymore,” you say, more tightly than before.  “This isn’t a game to me anymore.”</p><p>Something in your tone must have taken her off guard, because she stops talking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The voice of your younger self, the part of you that still flinches at heights and remembers what it felt like to have actual biological legs, warned you not to give into Vriska Serket’s plea for one final adventure before conscription.  Tinkerbull fluttered around your head while you gathered your supplies, braying with concern for your safety, but you left him with a kiss and a promise to come home safe.  You still don’t know what compelled you to board the ship.  You suspect that there was mind control involved, but you can’t say.

“Uh...where’s Terezi?” you ask, looking around.  A surprising number of lowbloods are on the ship with you, but they rush around, busy with preparations for sail.  Vriska stands at the hull, dressed in her roleplaying outfit.

She turns at the sound of your voice.  “Tavros! You came!  And I was starting to worry that you were going to be a little cluckbeast about this adventure,” she says with a clipped laugh.  In a leap and a few quick strides, she’s standing next to you, and she slings an arm around your shoulders.  You try hard not to stiffen.  “It’s just you and me this time, Toreasnooze.  Pyrope’s still got her ugly scalemate boxers in a twist over the little fiasco we had a couple of sweeps ago, so she refused to come. Can you believe that? I don’t know _how_ many times I apologized for what happened—I even got Zahhak to make you a new pair of legs and everything—but she still refuses to play any games with me.  So, this time, you and me are going to be partners.  How’s that sound, Tavros?”

“Partners?” you ask with more than a little skepticism.  You can’t imagine Vriska actually consenting to an equal partnership with you under any circumstance.

“Partners! More or less.” There it is.  “You’re actually my second mate!  Isn’t that exciting?”

“So, what duties does second mate entail, since I haven’t really done any nautical themed roleplays before?”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “You haven’t?”

“No...we—by which, I mean Aradia and I—we were always more of an archeologically themed team, with a sort of leaning towards mythologies, like the ancient snake mythologies, or those concerning fairies or Pupa Pan—“

“Yeah, yeah,” Vriska says, rolling her eyes.  “So you two never went out on the high seas in search of lost treasures left behind by your ancestors or to engage in epic battles with pirates?”

“Uh, no, we never really knew anything about our ancestors, or cared much about them to any degree, and pirates were not on our minds so much as daywalkers and perilous booby traps...”

“Well then,” she says, “it looks like you’re going to be learning something new before you’re carted off for conscription!  Look at all the marketable skills you’ll have as an adult.  You’ll be able to walk, you’ve got your weird lance, and now you’ll know how to scrub a deck!  Just look at all of these skills.”

“Scrub a deck?” you repeat.

“Don’t worry about it for now. We’ll talk about your duties after we’ve set out on our voyage.  For now, let’s just get your stuff put away.  Follow me.”  She drops her arm from your shoulders and, with a smile that doesn’t seem as malicious as you remember, walks towards a door at the end of the main deck. In a second of hesitation, you glance over your shoulder towards the walkway off the ship, wondering if this ill-advised adventure is really the way you want to spend your last perigee on Alternia.  You jump slightly when Vriska calls your name.  She’s waiting for you at the door, and it’s clear from her stance that you can’t back out now. Clutching your bags to you, you jog to her, clumsy on your metallic legs.

“Welcome to your quarters!” she says, stepping aside so you can enter.  The room is warm and well-furnished, and the walls are covered in ornamental, nautically-themed carvings.  Maps are strewn across the table in the center of the room. In opposite corners near the windows, there are two recuperacoons.

With a glance at Vriska, you say, “These quarters are, uh, nice...almost to the point of me not feeling comfortable sleeping here, actually, and...who else will be sleeping here, in the other recuperacoon?”

“Me, of course! We’re partners, right?” she says, pushing you inside.  She closes the door behind her.  “Listen up, Toreasnooze, don’t start getting spineless on me.  We have a full crew here, and we need solidarity among our officers.  That’s me and you. There are a few others, yeah, but we’re the big dogs.  Right now, we’re in the captain’s cabin, which is for me, the captain, and you, the first mate.”

“Do the first mates normally sleep in the captain’s cabin with the captain?” you ask, but you’re pretty sure you already know the answer.

“Don’t worry about it, okay? Loosen up and have some fun!” She walks past you and sits in a cushioned chair next to the table, throwing her feet up on a patch of its wooden surface free from maps or other clutter.  She gestures to the chair across from hers.  Swallowing your uncertainty, you drop your bags next to the door and slip into the offered chair, glancing from Vriska to the elaborate decorations peppering the room.  Almost as soon as you sit, she stands.  “Stay here and get comfortable,” she says as your mouth falls open. She grabs a glass and a bottle of red liquid as she circles around the table, setting each in front of you with a sly wink, and without another word, she’s out the door.

Within the hour, you feel the ship jar beneath your feet, warning you that you’re on the move. Vriska does not come back for you. The light from the moons trail across the floor as you put your things away.  Knowing that Alternia is the nearing the equinox of the 6th dark season and that the blinding sun will only rise for an hour or less, you decide it’s pointless to wait for day to go to sleep, so you tuck yourself into your recuperacoon a bit early.  You drift to sleep slowly, holding onto a sense of perplexity and isolation.

The next night, Vriska is your alarm clock and your alarm is bodily extraction from your recuperacoon. You scramble to cover yourself, even though you’re wearing boxers, and she laughs.  “Who said you could go to bed so early, Tavros? I was going to explain your duties to you last night, but when I came back, you were already asleep! What gives?”

Standing up, you reply, “I was bored, and tired from my journey to the dock, and since you were so busy, enough to leave me by myself for hours on end with nothing to do, I thought it was the best idea.”

“Don’t get sore,” she says, smirking.  She gestures to the table, where a full meal is waiting for you.  You glance at her when you walk past her, your perplexity from the night before returning with an extra kick.  She sits down with you and continues talking as you examine the food, which seems by all means to be a standard breakfast.  “You’ll have to get used to me disappearing without warning, Tavros,” she says, popping one of your baked beetles into her mouth. “I’m the captain of this ship, and I have a lot of stuff to do!  I can’t sit around to entertain you.”

“Why, exactly, did you want me to come on this trip with you...?” you ask after deciding the food is safe to eat.

“Like I said, I thought it’d be good to hang out one last time.  You know, to heal old scars and patch old friendships. And you’re not _just_ here to sit around and look pretty in my personal cabin! Here, come with me—you can eat that later.”

She smacks the food out of your hand and stands up, waiting for you to do the same.  You sigh and haul yourself out of the seat, and she grabs you by the arm, pulling you out into the open air.  The salty mist of seawater stings your eyes and skin, and the stars are a brilliant cover of glitter across the sky. There is no land in sight. Vriska gestures to the ship with a flourish of her hand and says, “You see all of these decks?”

“Yeah...?”

“They’re yours!”

“By which, do you mean to say that I actually own them, or that I can tell people who stand on the decks what to do, or what?”

“By which I mean to say,” she says, mocking you with the repetition, “that you get to keep them clean!”

“...That’s it?”

“That’s it! You are the second mate, a.k.a. the ship’s very own poopmaster!”

Your face falls. “You mean, I’m here because you wanted a janitor?”

“Don’t be that way, pupa!” she says, throwing her arm around you in the same jovial, overly friendly manner she had when you first arrived.  “Everyone has an important job, and your company is worth more than anything you could do on deck.  I would have given you more responsibilities, but then you let slip that you’ve never been to sea, so how could I justify giving you a bunch of hard jobs that need a lot of skill and experience to my crew?”

The explanation makes sense to you, but one thing in particular catches your attention.  “My company is worth more than my work?” you ask, feeling a flutter of happiness despite yourself.

“Obviously,” Vriska says. “Why else would I invite you? I miss the times we spent roleplaying together!”

“You do?”

“Yeah!  These chumps are hardly worth my time,” she says with a wave at the lowbloods loitering around the deck.  “You were as lame as lame gets, but at least you were _fun_.”

Buoyed by the vote of confidence, your face breaks into a smile.  “Wow, thanks, Vriska.  I actually wouldn’t have ever thought you felt that way about me, probably because of all the mean things you’ve always said and the way you used to bully me, which always made it seem as though you hated me.”

“You know, pupa, I’ve been doing some thinking,” Vriska says, and she looks at you with a sincere, open expression.  “I did think I hated you, but I was wrong.  So I really do want to rebuild our friendship before we leave Alternia.”

You look into her one good eye, and the part of you that still feels the aftermath of her mistreatment wants you to shrug her arm off your shoulder and disregard her honeyed words. But it all happened so long ago, and most of you, the adult you that's been built on the fragile self-affirming words of Rufio, is excited that Vriska is offering you any sort of olive branch at all.  She’s disarmed you with her kind words, and you want to believe she means them. Deep down, you really just want to play games with friends again.

“I guess that, if you feel that way, I wouldn’t mind trying to make amends, and maybe even putting all the things you did behind me,” you say.  “But, um...if you could try not to be mean to me, or make fun of me for any reason, especially reasons pertaining to my ineptitude with sea travel, I would appreciate it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replies, ruffling your hair as she pulls away from you.  The action takes you off guard.  She smirks, taking your surprise as an opportunity to shove a mop into your hands.  “You might want to get scrubbing, pupa.”

“Um, Vriska?” you say as she moves to return to her cabin.

“Mindfang,” she corrects you. “We’re roleplaying, remember? I’m the Marquise, and you’re the poopmaster Pupa Pan.  Your outfit is inside, by the way.”

“Oh, um...” you say, once again taken aback.  You recover more quickly this time, and you say, “Okay, so this is a roleplaying game with that kind of bent, wherein you’re a pirate, and I’m...not?  Pupa Pan isn’t the poopmaster of a pirate.”

“Just roll with it, pupa,” she responds, laughing.  “You and I are teaming up against a common enemy to reach an important legendary treasure before he does.”

“A treasure? What kind of—“

“ _That’s_ strictly captain’s business,” she interrupts.

You bite your lip, and after a second of hesitation, you ask, “Then, can I ask who the common enemy is?  Are we playing with someone else, or is this enemy a hypothetical one, who you’ve created to make the adventure more exciting?”

“Captain!” one of the pirates shout, pointing to a spot near the horizon.  The light of another ship, far in the distance, stands visible against the stars.  You look at Vriska, and she smirks.

“Our enemy, Tavros, is the guy who set up this game, another ‘friend’ who wanted to play for old times’ sake,” she says.

“Who is...?”

“Eridan.”


	2. Chapter 2

“All trolls on deck!” Vriska shouts as Eridan’s faster clipper ship closes in on your schooner. The crew is running around, frantically making preparations for _something_ , and you’re afraid that that something is a battle.  You’re at a loss.  You’ve never done any sort of sea battle role play, and you don’t know what it entails.  You stand meekly out of the way, squashing yourself into a corner and trying not to clothesline anyone with your horns.  To your dismay, Vriska’s uncovered eye seeks you out of the crowd, and she yells, “Tavros!  Get over here.”

Careful not to inhibit anyone’s path, you jog to her.  “Um...yeah?”

“Listen up,” she says. “I was really hoping we wouldn’t get into it this early with Eridan, but I guess the pretentious shit had an extra bag of gold lying around to spend on a nice ship, so that plan’s a bust. I’m going to need your help to take care of this.”

Your eyes widen and your dismay doubles.  “What can I do?” you ask, pretty sure yourself that the answer is _nothing_.

“Don’t freak out on me, Toreabore, this is standard stuff,” she says, rolling her eye.  “He’s going to pull up here, and we’re going to do the usual dice rolling.  Here’s the catch: I’ve been having a spell of bad luck lately—“

“Bad luck?”

“ _Yes_ , bad luck!  I can’t get a good roll out of a set of dice to save my life, and I’m not even exaggerating.” She huffs and crosses her arms. “It’s all those damn black oracles I broke.  Why did I even start doing that?  I can’t catch a break.”

You feel your stomach drop a notch.  “So, then, how are we supposed to win, if you’ve got bad luck for doing superstitious acts?”

“Obviously you’re going to have to roll the big numbers.”

At that, your stomach plummets all the way past your torso and out the bottom of your feet. “I think, theoretically, that’s a possible thing for me to do, or at least statistically speaking, but your luck has always been better than mine, and I don’t—“

“Shut up, Tavros,” she says, slapping her hand across your mouth.  She looks at you with a severe intensity that bores through your eyes and into your mind.  This is the Vriska you remember best.  “You’ll do fine,” she tells you, “and if you don’t...you can always call up a sea monster to destroy his ship.”

You fidget as she drops her hand from your mouth.  “But...I don’t mean to sound impudent, but that’s cheating, isn’t it?”

With a smirk, she replies, “We’re pirates, Tavros.  That’s what we do.  Now go stand over there and don’t touch anything.”

She turns away and strides into the organized chaos of the ship, barking orders, and you do as you’re told. In your chest, your pump biscuit is palpitating wildly.  Eridan’s ship is pulling alongside yours, and you can hear the noises of his crew preparing for battle as well.  Vriska jumps up onto the forecastle deck and, with a sneering confidence you only wish you could project, she shouts, “Dualscar!”

“Mindfang!” Eridan returns. You feel as though you’re watching a well-rehearsed play, and you can’t help but think this same thing must have happened many times before.  You can’t tell anymore if you’re afraid or excited.  Eridan turns and shouts something to his crew, and Vriska swings to you on a loose rope.

“Are you ready, Tavros?” she asks, breathless with the thrill of the encounter.  The bright exhilaration in her eye releases a new sort of feverishness into your veins, and you nod, returning her grin. “Good!  Get your dice ready!”

You follow her out onto the middle of the main deck, gripping your dice.  “We fire our canons at your hold!” Vriska shouts. As she rolls for attack, you watch Eridan.  His eyes lock with yours and his eyebrow fly up.  You’re clearly an addition he didn’t expect.

“Shit!” Vriska hisses, and you look down.  She’s rolled a three, not nearly high enough to hit.  A wave of uncertainty ripples through your body as you look over to Eridan.

“We prepare to board your vessel!” he shouts.  He rolls. His lips twitch upward, and he looks over his glasses at Vriska with wicked triumph.

“Seventeen!” he says. “And with the bonus added by my superior weapons, that makes twenty-two!”

“Fuck!” Vriska says beneath her breath, and your mouth falls open.  It’s a clear success.  A number of clutchropes breach the gap between your ships, and with them come crossing trestles.  Eridan’s crew begins to board.  “We prevent the boarding!” Vriska shouts, and she rolls.  Another low number, and the crew glance at each other with uncertainty.

“Ha!  What’s the matter, Mindfang?  I don’t remember you havin’ such shit rolls the last time we played.”

“Tavros!” Vriska says, and you jump.  “You take over.”

“Uh...”

“Just do it!”

You bite you lip and kneel down.  Eridan’s crew is on your deck, waiting for you to decide the fate of the encounter. “We, uh...we engage in strife, mostly by using our hopefully formidable guns, if we have those,” you say, feeling clumsy as you roll your d20.  Twelve. Vriska’s lips move as she calculates the final score with her crew’s bonuses, and she scowls.

“Well, that is just too bad,” Eridan says.  You look up, and he’s on your deck, smirking down at the two of you with barely concealed glee. He drops his die. Twenty.  You are both fucked.

“Tavros,” Vriska hisses, and you glance at her.  “Do the thing.”

“But...”

“ _Do the thing_ , Tavros.  Just do it!”

Your internal organs are doing all sorts of uncomfortable things in your torso, and you really wish you were better at thinking on your feet as Eridan’s crew surrounds yours. You inhale and close your eyes. You don’t like to cheat, but...

A familiar sensation overtakes you, and your eyes snap open.  Your senses are blurred.  You know what’s happening, but you can’t stop it.  When you finally regain control of your mind, Eridan’s ship is sinking into the water, following a giant squid into the depths of the ocean. Vriska is laughing hysterically as Eridan shouts at his crew, calling them a number of names as they fail repeatedly to shoot the sea creature.  He turns on her.

“You backstabbin’, connivin’, soulless _hag_!” he roars. “You cheated!”

“It’s not _my_ fault if a giant sea monster decides it’s hungry at a bad time,” Vriska says, smirking at his rage.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re lyin’, you fuckin’ hellcat!”

“How could I have possibly arranged for that to happen?”  You feel your face grow hot.  Eridan turns his glare on you.  You shrink away, trying to avoid his eyes.

“You did it, didn’t you?” he says, taking a few steps to stand in front of you.  Your mind blurs again as you feel yourself answer, and in the next second, he has you on your back, pinned against the deck with his foot. You’re looking at the pointed end of Ahab’s Crosshairs.  “Do you know what the penalty for cheatin’ in my games are, you filthy sludgeblood?”

Your pump biscuit is hammering in your throat, and no matter how hard you swallow, it won’t go back down. You shake your head. Through the haze of your panic, you hear Vriska say, “Would you quit freaking out, Eridan? He’s new to this kind of game.”

“I don’t care if he was born yesterday an’ is still shittin’ in his wiggler diaperstubs. I ought’a make him walk the plank for destroyin’ my beautiful ship.”  He puts pressure on the boot on your chest and sneers down at you, “You hear that?  I’m gonna tie you up and drop you in the ocean, and when I get back to land, I’m gonna find out where you keep your lusus and feed it to the Speaker of the Vast Glub, just like I do to all the stupid idiots that think they can outsmart me.”

You finally open your mouth to squeak out a reply, but before you can say anything, he removes his boot from your chest.  Vriska strolls over and punches him in the shoulder.  “I’ll take care of it,” she says.  “I’ll just feed him to my lusus, and everyone’s happy. How’s that sound?”

Your jaw drops. Eridan’s eyebrows shoot up, and he examines her face, skeptical but appreciating the thought. With a slight nod, he backs up a step.  “Fine,” he says. “But I get his lusus. And don’t think for a second that I’m not serious about that, Tav, just ‘cause I know people who know you. You’re just another lowblood for me to walk over.  Nobody disrespects Dualscar.”

He turns around to bark orders at his crew, and they begin to lead Vriska’s pirates down to the brig. You look up at Vriska, jaw still open, pump biscuit falling from your throat as heavy and solid as a rock. You can’t even express how betrayed you feel.  She glances down at you and rolls her eye with a grimace.  A quick movement at her side attracts your attention.  She’s motioning at you with her hand, but you don’t know what it means.  You glance back up to her face, and she shoots you a meaningful look, eyebrows up and eye wide.  Her face goes blank as Eridan returns his attention to her.

“You two are gonna stay with me,” he says.  “Now that it’s _clear as fuckin’ crystal_ that neither of you can be trusted, I’m gonna have my eyes on you like a featherbeast. Take ‘em to the captain’s cabin and chain ‘em somewhere.”

A big, beastly midblood picks you off the ground and sets you roughly on your feet, and he hustles you away towards the captain’s quarters.  You’re thrown roughly through the door and onto your ass. Vriska follows, untouched by the troll escorting her, who motions for her to sit against the wall opposite from you.  She frowns as the troll starts to fix metal shackles to the walls.  Your arms are yanked above your head and locked in the armbands, as are Vriska’s, and the two trolls leave you alone in the cabin.

As soon as the door clicks shut, Vriska leans forward as far as she can and says, “Okay, Tavros, here’s the plan—“

“You threw me under the musclebeast,” you interrupt, glaring at her from beneath your brows. “You made me cheat, and then probably made me take the blame for you, although I don’t know what I said, and now you’re going to feed me to your lusus, even after I did an arguably kindhearted thing for you, by allowing you the benefit of the doubt with my trust. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you, and I should have stayed home and not involved myself in your games, since you don’t play fair and there’s always too much at stake—“

“Oh my god, Tavros, _shut up_ ,” she says, and her mind powers compel you to listen.  You keep glaring at her even though you can’t talk, and she glares back. “First of all, _obviously_ I’m not going to feed you to my lusus. If I _ever_ wanted to do that, I would have already done it! But I haven’t, have I? You’re off-limits as spider food, just like you always have been.  That’s because you’re actually important to me, believe it or not!”

You feel her retreat from your mind, and you immediately say, “I would be thankful, but really, I think that not feeding people to your lusus is basically the least prerequisite for being not a terrible person, so I’m not feeling very grateful for that.”

She releases an impatient huff.  “Think what you want,” she says.  “But you should be grateful.  Because of my plan, we’re not floating in the ocean among the rubble of our ship, we have Eridan under our supervision at all times, _and_ we can pretend to be suckers until we get right up close to the treasure! It couldn’t have gone better, if you ask me.”

“No, I don’t care about that stuff.”  You huddle against the wall and pull your legs to your chest.  “I remember now, that you and Eridan play a really extreme version of this game, wherein all of the people you play with are collateral to you, and I don’t want to be your weapon or a strategic item for you to use as an iron in your fire.  Eridan never cared about me at all, and now it sounds like he wants to kill me, or at least Tinkerbull, and if that’s true, this isn’t a game to me anymore.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Vriska says.  “He’s not going to go out of his way to find your silly lusus while you’re still alive. He only _really_ feeds them to Gl’bo-whatever when they come to the game with their trolls, and Tinkerbull’s nowhere near here.”

Your eyes widen. “So, wait, do you mean to say that Eridan actually does that, as a thing that’s a regular part of his roleplaying persona?”

“We can’t all have easy, carefree childhoods like you did, Tavros,” Vriska says, rolling her eye. “If he doesn’t feed Feferi’s lusus, it starts to speak and we’re all dead.  If I don’t feed _my_ lusus, she gets mad and _I’m_ dead. So, we made a pact. It’s basic business.”

Your whole body ices over, and you go speechless.  You knew Vriska feeds the trolls she defeats to her lusus, but, though the idea disturbs you, you know that’s how things are on Alternia.  The social ideology that says the strong live and the weak die is so familiar to you that Vriska’s murderous past is little more than unsavory. Eridan’s murder of lusii, though...that’s something you find shocking.  Years of raising and training various beasts to adulthood has made you sensitive to animals and lusii, even beyond what your psychic abilities necessitate, and the idea of somebody murdering innocent creatures makes you nauseous.  You picture Tinkerbull, sitting in your hive with all your animal friends, with only the tall cliff outside dividing them from the sea.  If Eridan was telling the truth about feeding Tinkerbull to Feferi’s lusus, all he would have to do is anchor his boat at the bottom of the cliff and climb.  Your imagination supplies an image of a bloodbath, complete with terrified squeals and violent flashes from Eridan’s gun, and to your surprise, you can feel the sharp cut of anger edging your distress.

“No,” you say, drawing your legs into you as far as you can, “no, I don’t like that.  I don’t want him to hurt Tinkerbull or any of my other animal friends, or any other lusus.  I don’t want to be a part of this anymore.”

“Calm down. I told you, Eridan’s not going anywhere near your lusus.  It’s too much work for him.  Besides, we’re all getting off Alternia in a perigee, so who really cares anyways?” You glance at her, and apparently your anger is evident on your face because her eyebrows shoot up. “Wow, pupa, you’re really worked up about this!”

“I can’t expect you to understand,” you say, looking away from her.  “You never had affection from your lusus, or any other creature, so you wouldn’t know anything about why I’m upset or otherwise distressed about this new information.”

“Damn, is that all it takes to get you riled up?” she asks with an impressed note that belittles your current emotional state.  “If I had known that, I would’ve said something sweeps ago!  Hey, maybe we can channel that energy into something useful.  When we get to this treasure, it’s guarded by an enormous musclebeast, so you—“

“I’m not playing anymore,” you say, more tightly than before.  “This isn’t a game to me anymore.”

Something in your tone must have taken her off guard, because she stops talking.   


	3. Chapter 3

The door closes with a bang as Eridan strolls into the room, muttering to himself about the stupidity of lowbloods.  You glance up as he sits at the table but quickly drop your eyes.  It doesn’t matter; he’s not looking at you anyways. His eyes are on Vriska. “Vris, I thought this game was between you an’ me, just like old times.  Why’d you bring _him_ along?  I guess it wouldn’t’a been a big deal if you’d brought Terezi or somethin’ since you two used to be partners, but everyone _knows_ this shitblood’s not worth your time,” he says.  A bubble of resentment forms in your chest.

“I didn’t know this was an invite only event,” she retorts.

“The only lowbloods who’re invited when we play are the expendable ones, you know that.”

“I told you, if you want him to walk the plank into my lusus’s open jaws like everybody else, I’m not against that.”  You balk, but you remind yourself that she’s lying.  You really hope she's lying to Eridan and not you.

“You let him _roll_!” Eridan says.  “What the hell, you wouldn’t’a done that if he were just like the rest’a them!”

“Who rolls on my ship is my business, Ampora.  Butt out.”

“I’m callin’ bullshit, Serket.”  He stands and walks over to her, squatting in front of her to look her in the eye. “I know you think I’m some sorta chump—you’ve always thought that way about me, _always_ —but I know you well, and I can tell when you’re plannin’ somethin’.  Everyone knows about your fiasco with Nitram and Medigo, and no idiot would agree to play with you after somethin’ like that, so you really had to convince this guy to be on your team for _something_. Didn’t she?”

He looks over his shoulder at you, waiting for confirmation, and you frown.  You’re not going to give him that satisfaction, even though his guess is spot on.  “No, I came because I wanted to play, like old times, as you were saying, even though I didn’t know you were going to be playing as well, like you said.”

His face falls. “So you are just an idiot.”

“No, I’m not,” you say, your face flushing.  “That is, I came for other reasons, which also include forgiving Vriska for her past actions against me, which is a necessary step to becoming the better man, who I wanted to become before we left Alternia and never saw each other again.”

He examines your flushing face and misinterprets it as a blush.  His lips twist upwards into a sneer.  “Looks like somebody’s got a flush crush,” he says, wagging his eyebrows at Vriska.  “So you used your wily feminine charms on him, eh, Mindfang?  That’s something you’ve always been good at.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Ugh, fuck off, Ampora,” she says, kicking his feet out from under him.  He falls to his ass, and you snicker at his expense.

“Shut up,” he snaps at you. “Like you have any chance with her anyways.  You’re way outta your league, dirtscrapper, and you’re right that she ain’t gonna be seeing any’a you after conscription.”

“Speak for yourself,” Vriska says.  His jaw drops open.

“Wait, you don’t mean to say you like him _back_?” he asks, leaning towards her.  “ _Him?_   He’s barely got a working spine, literally _and_ figuratively!  You mean to tell me you won’t take me on a decent, proper hate-date but you got it in for Metalbulge Nitram?”

“It can do more than yours can,” you say.  He looks at you, taken aback, and even you’re surprised by your own boldness. You try to hold his gaze like you imagine Vriska would if she were in your position, but your face grows hot and you glance away.  Your eyes fall on Vriska, who’s looking at you with a raised eyebrow and an appreciative smirk.  Your pump biscuit skips.  Suddenly, you’re feeling pretty good.

“Wait just one fuckin’ second,” Eridan says, standing up.  “If you two are really pushin’ into scarlet territory together, how am I supposed’a believe that you’re really gonna be feedin’ him to your lusus?”

He looks down at Vriska, and she wipes the expression off her face.  “Nobody said anything about ‘pushing into scarlet territory,’ moron,” she says.

“Oh yeah?  Methinks there’s a heavy atmosphere of pity in this cabin, and none of it’s comin’ from me.  You’re tryin’ to bamboozle me, Mindfang.  Out with it, or he’s walkin’ the plank tonight!” A jolt of panic pulses through you, but Vriska just rolls her eye.

“Don’t be a halfwit, Eridan,” she says, looking up at him with an irritated expression.  “You know you can’t _really_ do anything on this ship without my permission.”

Your face breaks into a slow grin as Eridan’s cheeks glow violet.  “That’s not fair!” he says, and you suppress a laugh.  “That’s cheatin’ and you know it!  You can’t go takin’ over my mind while we’re clear opponents in a game'a skill and wit.  I’m the captain'a this ship, fair and square, and if you got a problem with it, I’ll maroon you on an island an’ you won’t get to see an inch of the treasure.  And you’ll quit grinnin’ like a fuckin’ meowbeast if you know what’s good for you!” The last remark is for you, and you duck your head, grinning wider that ever.  You glance at Vriska, and she’s watching you with a cocky smirk.

Eridan looks between the two of you, violet spreading across his cheeks.  “There’s a reason you had him come, and there’s a reason you’re pretendin’ like there ain’t a reason, or else you wouldn’t of pretended you were gonna feed him to your lusus,” he snaps.  “If you won’t talk, I’ll find out myself.”

“We both know you’re not clever enough for that, Dualscar,” Vriska says with an airy tone. She’s roleplaying again, and you know it’s because she has the upper hand.  Her confidence is making you giddy.

“Like hell I’m not that clever.  I’ve been more’n enough of a challenge for you when we were still exchangin’ blows!”

“No, you weren’t. That was the point. _That_ was why I stopped playing with you, blockhead.”

His face falls into a pout. “How can you say a thing like that?  We were good rivals back in the day.  We killed scores’a trolls together, you ‘n me.”

“Yeah, and it got _boring_!”

“And you’re sayin’ _he’s_ less boring than I am?” Eridan asks, pointing at you.  The question takes you by surprise, and your pump biscuit flutters at you look at Vriska, waiting for her answer almost as eagerly as Eridan.

She shrugs. “He’s actually so boring that it’s infuriating, which, paradoxically, makes him not boring.” You...think that’s a compliment?

Eridan looks down at you, and his face darkens with something like jealousy.  “Fine,” he says with a huff.  “You wanna play that way, Mindfang? If I can’t get the answer from you, I’ll just get it from _him_.”

To both of your surprise, he stomps out of the room, calling for another troll.  You exchange a glance with Vriska, feeling a pang of apprehension.  You don’t know what he’s going to do, but you don’t like it.

“Don’t worry, pupa. We have this under control,” Vriska says, and she shoots you another cocky smirk.  Your anxiousness lessens slightly.  You smile back, feeling a strong rapport with her that you never expected to feel.

“Um, so...what you said earlier, about—“ you start, but Eridan abruptly returns, holding the door open for the same bulky midblood that threw you into the captain’s cabin earlier. The midblood goes over to Vriska and unlocks her hands.  She complains as he hauls her to her feet.

“What gives?” she says, glaring at Eridan.

“You’re goin’ down to hang out with your crew until I figure out what you got planned,” he responds, sitting down at the end of the table with pointed poise.  “If we get to the island before I know what you’ve concocted in your crafty think pan, I’m throwin’ him overboard.” He nods to you. “Oh, and don’t bother tryin’ to manipulate the guards, ‘cause I made sure to find some trolls you can’t mindfuck just for this sorta occasion.”

Vriska snarls a number of choice words as the midblood picks her up and hauls her outside. The door snaps shut behind them, leaving you alone with Eridan.  Without Vriska, your apprehension is back tenfold. You lower your head and peek at Eridan from underneath your eyelashes, trying to be inconspicuous. You jump slightly as Eridan’s chair scraps on the ground and he stands up.  He walks to you, and just as he had knelt in front of Vriska, he kneels.

“So, Tav, what do you have to say for yourself?”

You look between his eyes, feeling anger stir in your chest.  “I have to say that I never heard good things about you, but now I know that you’re really as despicable a person as the gossip says you are, and knowing Vriska for so long makes that a really significant statement for me to say.”

His eyes narrow. “You better watch your tongue, Nitram,” he says.  “I’ve killed more’n enough lowbloods with twice as much personality as you got _an’_ functional lower bodies, and I got half my mind set on killin’ you before the night’s over.  If you give me a reason not to, maybe I won’t.”

“Killing me won’t make Vriska care about you or think of you more often in any way,” you say before you know what you’re saying.  You flinch as he grabs your horns and bangs your head back against the wall.

“Don’t you think for a second that I’m fallin’ for all that lovey-dovey bullshit you two were puttin’ on earlier,” he says, scowling down at you.  You feel a shiver of fear that somehow ends in your metallic but completely functional groin. Your breathing becomes shallow.

“Are you mad, because Vriska begs me to hang out with her, when she won’t even give you the time of day anymore?” you say, wincing as he puts more pressure on your horns. You know you shouldn’t be saying the things you’re saying and at any other time you wouldn’t, but now, you can’t keep your mouth shut.  “Have you stopped to think that it’s because you’re a nasty person, one that has an overbearing personality and that does unquestionably horrible things, such as kill people’s lusii?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he snarls. “I’m a better troll than you’ll ever be, an’ if I weren’t in such a merciful mood, you’d be dead right now!”

“But, I’m not, and I won’t be, because Vriska won’t let you kill me, so, uh, I guess that makes you the loser in this particular situation, since I have superior allies, and you’re alone with your crew that only listens to you because they have to.” Your voice is beginning to show your breathlessness.  You don’t know where you’re finding the confidence to say all this, but damn does it feel good.  Eridan looms over you, fangs bared, but he hasn’t come up with a retort yet.  You feel your lips twitch upward in triumph. The feeling is foreign and so, so sweet.

“If you keep talkin’,” Eridan says, just above a hiss, “we’re gonna take a detour to your hive, and I’m gonna string your pathetic lusus up as my flag.”

Your pump biscuit freezes for a second.  “No, that’s—you wouldn’t do that anyway, because you want your treasure, and Vriska—“

“What makes you think she gives a shit about your lusus?” Eridan interrupts.  “She threw you off a fuckin’ cliff, you imbecile. She’s a psychopathic mass murderer.  She doesn’t give a flyin’ fuck if you’re an orphan or not so long as she can get you to do what she wants you to.  She wouldn’t stop me if I paid a visit to your stupid fairybull.”  He’s latched onto this new weakness, and you can almost see him dredging up information that must have reached him through the unstoppable network of gossip that travels through your friend group.  You never talked to him much, but it’s apparent that some time in the past, Kanaya or Vriska must have said something about your life that he’s just now beginning to recall.  You don’t know why he cared to remember.

“If you go anywhere near my hive,” you say, thinking quickly, “I’ll, uh...I’ll attack you with your own lusus, so that the only way to prevent your trampling to death would be to kill your custodian, tragically, in an act of grievous violence.”

“You’re not making a good argument for me not to kill you, Tav.”  To stress his point, he moves one of his hands down to your neck and squeezes.

“I won’t allow that to be the case, even if Vriska isn’t around to know when to stop you from hurting me,” you say, grimacing as his claws dig into your skin.  “I’ll have your ship destroyed by any of the many large and particularly menacing fauna that swim in the oceans, or maybe by Feferi’s lusus, who could eat you in a single gulp if she wanted to. I can make that happen, and if you push me, I will.”

“I’ll kill anything you send my way.”  He moves his other hand to your neck and tightens his grip.  “The ocean’ll be a bloodbath and there won’t be no one to blame for it but you.  I’ll make you watch as I feed the corpses of a hundred lusii to Gl’bgolyb until you run outta air and drown, you land dwellin' waste'a life.”

You gasp, trying to breathe through your constricted airways, and your eyesight is beginning to blur. Your heart beats faster as you realize that he could actually be trying to kill you.  You buck your hips and pull down on the metal binds on your hands, but Eridan drops his weight on you and continues to crush your throat, his scowl twisting into a smirk.  Closing your eyes, you throw your head forward and jerk it to the side, striking him solidly in the side of the head with your horn. He falls off you, and his glasses slide across the floor.

“Fuck!” he says as you wheeze and sputter, trying to suck down air.  You glance at him as your vision returns to normal. He’s bleeding at the temple. The sight of his violet blood is unusually satisfying to you, even though you normally don’t like violence. He turns to you with a seething glare, and your eyes meet.  The enmity in his gaze sends a shiver down your back.

Still glaring at you, he stands and brushes himself off.  He only breaks eye contact after he touches his bruised head to look down at the blood on his fingers.  His eyes narrow.  “That does it,” he says, turning to pick up his glasses.  He adjusts them on his face and turns back to you.  “Enjoy your daymares tonight, Tav.  Tomorrow, we’re goin' hunting for Gl’bgolyb food. And, just so you know, I’ve figured out why Vriska wanted you on her ship.  She’s using you, you pathetic sack'a shit.  She obviously wants you to help her get past the monster guardin' the treasure.”

“I don’t care about treasure, or about your stupid game, or whatever rivalry you think you have with her,” you say.  “You both are too crazy to play with, so I’m going to stay out of it.”

“Not anymore, you’re not. Now that I’ve got her plan figured out, I think I’ll adopt it myself.”  He smirks down at you, and you frown.

“No, you’re not, and I’m not, and you can’t make me do anything.”

“I can’t, but she can.”

There’s a note of deviousness in the statement, and you don’t respond.  You’re in a place your better instincts warned you not to be, caught in a Serket scheme gone awry, and you really don’t know if you can blame anyone other than yourself for being stupid enough to come.  You don’t know what to do.  You’ve never been clever enough to keep up with Vriska’s plans, and now you’re in the middle of one, the center piece, and Eridan’s forced himself into the mix, making it harder to keep track of who's planning to do what with whom. Dejection settles itself heavily into your think pan. 

As Eridan undresses and slips into his recupercoon, though, a part of you that’s rested dormant at the back of your mind your whole life adds an element of excitement to the undercurrent of emotions running through your think pan, and you try--and fail--not peek.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw chapter warning

You’re standing on the main deck with your hands bound behind your back while Eridan paces in front of you, looking like a smug piece of shit.  Vriska is nowhere in sight.  You imagine she’s below deck, sulking in the brig with the rest of her crew.  Eridan’s sailors are eyeing you as he passes by you again, inspecting the ship while you watch.

“Black sails? Where’s she get off gettin’ black sails for her ship?  Tacky as shit...” he says, looking up at the masts with a critical eye.  You don’t respond.  You don’t think he wants you to respond, but in case he does, your lips are sealed shut.  He glances at you.

“What’s the matter, Tav? You look like you had a rough night.”  He smirks as you look away, frowning.  Sitting on your metal butt with your hands held above your head took its toll, and the daymares that plagued you when you drifted off were pretty awful. You’re fucking tired. You wish you could hide that fact from him and the other trolls leering at you, but you know there must be some dark rings under your eyes.  He walks up to you and grabs your chin, making you look at him.  His stupid accent grates on your nerves when he speaks. “Look, Tav, here’s the deal. Usually when we do games like this, I would use the lusii of Vris’s crew to keep Gl’bgolyg’s satisfied, but for some reason, all you chumps left ‘em at home.  I don’t know if you’re all just smarter than usual or if she cued you all into the way we do things, but I still gotta do my job. So what I want you to do is call up some sort of big sea monster that I can throw to Fef.  It’s really easy.  Think of it as a way to make up for all the shit that happened last night.”

You glance at his temple, where a purple bruise is hidden beneath his well-groomed hair. You almost get the urge to smile, but you push it down and say, “I don’t really want to be a part of your mass lusii genocide, since I like lusii more than I like you.”

“Tav, why do you gotta be such a pain in my ass?” Eridan asks.  “What have I ever done to you?”

“Uh, well, you did try to kill me.  Just last night. That was a thing that you definitely did to me that should be noteworthy enough to explain my animosity.”

“And I really will kill you if you don’t start acting like the fuckin’ prisoner you are!” he snaps, swiping his hand away from your chin.  “I’m the captain’a this rowboat piece of shit ship and anyone who doesn’t listen to me is gonna pay the fuckin’ price!”

“If you want to go hunting, then why don’t you just do it yourself, since I guess you’re apparently good at slaughtering innocent creatures.”

“I don’t wanna waste the time, brinesucker, and why should I when I have a troll on board who can commune with animals?”

“I’m not a tool for you to use for your diabolical plots—“

“Feeding Fef’s lusus isn’t diabolical, you nincompoop, it’s necessary for the survival of our race. Even you can’t be so stupid to deny that.”

You glare at him, and he glares back, practically shoving his face into yours.  You want to punch him or kick him or ram your forehead into his nose at the very least, but you know he’s right.  You’re not that stupid.  You do know that he’s making you participate in the hunt to spite you, or you at least suspect that’s the case, and even if it isn’t, you don’t want to be a part of it.  You’re torn, and he continues to stare you in the eyes. So, you decide to do something foolhardy.

“Okay,” you say as you concentrate.  His eyes widen with surprise, but he recovers quickly and takes a step back, a smug smirk settling on his lips.

“See, Tav, when you cooperate, things are—“

He’s cut off mid-sentence as something jars the ship from below, sending him stumbling backwards. The water begins to bubble and tremble.  The radius of the disturbance grows, reaching out hundreds of feet in all directions. With a screech, about fifty different sea creatures break through the surface of the water, some flying into the air and others crashing into the waves.  The water beats at the side of the ship.  Trolls fall and roll across the deck. Even you’re thrown onto your butt, and Eridan topples into you.

“What the fuckin’ shit, Tav?” he demands, grabbing hold of you.

“Whoops,” you say with a grin. None of the lusii threaten the ship itself, but they continue to thrash and howl, causing a sizable commotion in the water.  Eridan pushes away from you and crawls to the rail as the ship lurches and wobbles, pulling Ahab’s Crosshairs from his strife specibus as he goes.  A wave of panic pulses through you, and you release the lusii.  As they pause in the water, confused, Eridan aims and fires at the closest.  You close your eyes, but you hear the shriek, a terrible sound that pulls at all of your organs and freezes your blood in your veins.  The water begins to still as the sound dies away and becomes a pathetic gurgling below the water. You can hear trolls pushing themselves to their feet, groaning.  Your eyes stay closed.

You’re shocked out of your distress by a pair of hands that close on your neck and haul you to your feet. You open your eyes. Eridan is not happy with you. His fangs are bared, his face is flushed purple, and his brow is drawn down into a dark glare. He turns you and forces you towards the captain’s cabin, throwing you inside so hard you hit the table. His hands are on your shoulders, turning you around.  You wish your own hands weren’t tied behind your back.

“Who’s the captain of this ship?” he hisses into your face.

“I’m not playing,” you say, trying hard not to stutter.  You’re still stunned from the lusus’s death, but you can feel a dark pressure growing in your chest.  You’re beginning to shake.  You’re beginning to recognize that you’re angry, but not at Eridan.  You’re angry because you played along. How did you really think that stunt would end?  Vriska always said you were an idiot, and she’s right.  None of your plans work out.  You’re not a plan-maker.  You’re an idiot.

Eridan doesn’t give you time to think.  He grabs you and slams you against the wall, holding you there with an arm pressed against your throat. “I don’t give a shit what game you think we’re playin’, Tav,” he snarls.  “If you don’t wanna play games, fine, we ain’t gonna play any games. It just me an’ you, on a ship, and _one of us is the captain_. Who the fuck is it, Tav?”

You don’t answer. The dark pressure grows black. You can’t deal with his tirade. You want to be left alone. His face is too close.

“ _Who’s the fuckin’ captain, Tav_?”

You kiss him. You want to toss him onto the table and crawl up on top of him, and you want to drop your hips down onto his and grind him into the wood.  You’re tired and horrified and generally done with his stupid fucking accent, and you don’t know why you came on this trip.  You’re stupid.  He’s stupid.  You want Vriska back. You want to go home and squeeze Tinkerbull in the biggest hug you can give.

You never thought black romance would actually feel black, but black is pulsing through you as Eridan moves his arm from your throat to your hair.  Black crawls under your skin as his hand slides up your shirt and his bulge presses against your own pseudo-organic one, which Equius spent more time on than was perhaps necessary or comfortable.  You press back and bite his lip, and he kicks your shaky legs from under you, throwing you to the floor.  You see black as he straddles you, holding your horns down as he lets you lick the blood from his lips.  You want to tongue fuck his mouth.

“What the hell are you about?” he hisses into your ear as you arch your back, sliding your arousal against his. His voice grates on your nerves, and you bite at his jaw.  His cheeks are violet, and beneath his brow knit with confusion, his pupils are dilated with lust.  If he weren’t holding your horns down, you would break his dumb glasses with your forehead.

“You’re a horrible person,” you say, trying to take the pressure off the hands tied behind your back. He has your shirt hiked up around your armpits.  You wish you wore pants, but it never seemed necessary before now.  Your bulge presses against the fabric of his crouch. “I’ve never met someone as pompous and unapologetically horrible as what you are.”

“It looks to me like you like it, Tav,” he says, licking around the rim of your ear.  His breath catches as your bulges snakes down the cleft of his ass, desperately searching for a place to enter.  You’re so overwhelmingly hot.  You want to take his shirt off, or at least the gaudy cape that’s closing all your heat against you like a blanket. His lips feel cool against your neck.

“Untie my hands,” you say, “please.”  You almost flinch as the word slips out, a product of habit, proof that you’re a “lame troll,” as you can imagine Vriska saying even as you try to buck Eridan off. He has you held down tight, his full weight on top of you, but you want nothing more than to be in his position, straddling his hips as he squirms.  His eyes narrow with conceit and a smirk tugs at his lips.

“What was that, Tav? Are you beggin’ now?” he asks. He’s almost purring. You buck, but he keeps you pinned. He’s acting tough, but he doesn’t dare take his hands off your horns.  You’re in a stalemate, technically, neither of you capable of using your hands. 

But you’re the one with the inorganic bulge. 

You arch up, pressing your hips into his.  You can feel his bulge through his pants, and yours has found the damp dip in the fabric of his crouch that betrays the location of his nook.  You rub against it, nudging into the seam.  Heat pulses through you.  You wonder how long the stitches holding his pant legs together can withstand the onslaught of your solid erection, and you can see in the widening of his eyes that he’s thinking the same thing. You’re practically thrusting against him, wearing the stitching thin, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

At least, you thought he didn’t know what to do about it, but he punches you, a quick jab right between the eyes.  Bright colored lights replace your vision.  He’s not on top of you anymore.  You try to twist away as he pulls you up against the wall, yanking you into a sitting position.  His chest is flat against one of your horns as he reaches behind you to untie you hands. You don’t know what he’s planning, but as soon as you’re free, you struggle, pushing against his hips and flailing, trying to move to the side or slide beneath him.  Your vision is beginning to come back as he wrestles back against you, grabbing one of your wrists and lifting it above your head with all of his strength.  It locks into place in the metal cuffs.  You balk and look up, and in your moment of confusion, he dives onto your other wrist and locks it up, too.  He rolls off of you, panting.

“There, you animal,” he says, the corners of his lips turning up as he pants.  Sweat is pouring down his face.  “Caged up like you pretty well ought to be, apparently.”

“I’m not an animal,” you say. You’re panting just as hard as he is, you realize.  You glare at him.  “You’re the animal, not me.  Or maybe, instead of an animal, you’re actually a monster, something hideous and mean.”

“That’s right. I’m a monster,” he says. There’s a wicked gleam in his eyes as he approaches you on his hands and knees, cautious of your free legs. As fast as a snake, he snatches at something behind you.  He comes away with the rope that bound your hands.  “I’m a monster that kills little animals, sometimes because I have to and sometimes just for fun.”

The black energy pulsing through you chills as he comes back towards you, that wicked glint shining in the violet of his irises.  Blood oozes from your nose.  If he comes closer, you resolve to kick him, but he does and you don’t. He tosses a loop of the rope over your horn and pulls, and you flinch as your head is jerked to the side. In a flash, he’s on top of you, twisting the rope around your arm.  As you realize what he’s doing, you begin to struggle again, but years of sea travel has made him efficient at tying knots.  With your horns tied to your arms, the only things he has to worry about are your legs.  Your bulge twists for him, open and unprotected.

“I wouldn’t’a expected this from you, Tav,” he says.  He reaches down and strokes your bulge with his thumb, letting it curl around his forefinger.  Its malleable, pseudo-organic surface is lubricated with your actual genetic material, and you wonder for a brief second how bored Equius must have been to make it work so well and feel so unbelievably real.  You press your lips together, resisting the urge to arch your back and moan, but you know he can feel you shiver.  Your breath becomes thin.  You startle as he leans forward to lick your temple, and he asks into your ear, “If this is the way you want to be tamed, you won’t hear me complainin’.”

“I don’t want to be tamed,” you start to say, but he moves his mouth to yours and the desire to tongue fuck the accent out of his voice overwhelms you again, so you let him into your mouth.  He’s salty and cool and clearly bent on dominating you.  His knees slide beneath yours and he’s palming your bulge, pushing your shirt up again, spreading your legs farther apart to display you, but you still can’t touch him or rip off his shirt or take off that stupid cape. You want to see what you saw the night before when he got into his recuperacoon.

“Your—“ you start, but the fear of sounding weak or unconfident hits you, so after a beat of hesitation, you just say, “Strip.”  A command, one that sounds almost too forceful for you even now, and he smirks against your lips.

“No,” he says. You glare at him as he breaks the kiss, moving to your neck.  You can almost feel his eyes on you as he reaches below your bulge to the entrance of your nook, but you can’t move your head with your horns tied. You bite your lip, trying to swallow the noises that are bubbling up your throat as his other hand snakes down your torso to take over the ministrations on your bulge and the hand below it toys with the sensitive area beneath.  It feels almost too receptive to his touch, and you think maybe you should have a word with Equius.  You arch your back.  You begin to pant.  He pushes a finger in deep, then another, stroking the outside with his thumb, his other hand teasing your bulge with a tight enough grip to remind you why you’re in this position in the first place, and you can’t see his face at all with his teeth skimming against the skin of your neck, and you just now realized you’re whining.

His hand moves to his pants. He unbuckles his belt, undoes his button, unzips his fly.  You can only tilt your head down so far, but the noises are enough. He licks up your neck. “Do you want me to fuck you, you dirteatin’ shitblood?”

You just would really rather not say yes to that, but it’s too much not to.  His fingers probe and press inside of you, and he moves closer, allowing his freed bulge to stroke against yours. Nearly breathless, you say, “Yes,” but you make sure to add, “about the first thing, but not the last, what you called—“

He crams his mouth against yours and his fingers are gone from your nook, replaced by his bulge so quickly you can hardly think to process the loss.  It’s as cool as his fingers but so much bigger, slicker, thicker. The tip pushes in slowly, a little bit at a time at first, but with a thrust he’s in so deep that your vision blurs.  You gasp, and the moan that’s been hovering at the bottom of your throat slips out. He lifts your hips a little, sliding himself a little closer, both hands stabilizing your hips as he adjusts to you.  His breath is as shallow as yours.  “Shit,” he breathes, “fuckin’ lowblood, you’re so _warm_ ,” and you are.  You’re practically on fire, and he’s filling you up, sending waves of need and want and black passion through you with every thrust, his bulge pulsing and undulating, feeling inside you, lapping at the entrance of your seedflap.  He hisses with surprise as your bulge dips around his and feels out his own nook, entering only the tip, just enough to send your mind reeling.  You can’t stop the noises emerging from you throat.  You can’t stop.

The build comes with plenty of breathy whines, and your mind reels as you tighten, shocks of pleasure sweeping up from your groin as his bulge keeps pumping into you. Your breath hitches, and you hear Eridan hiss against your neck, murmuring as you close on him. You shiver, shudder, jerk as he keeps going, sustaining your pleasure, pressing into your seedflap with his tip, and you can’t keep your voice under control anymore.  You want his mouth on yours again, you want his skin slick against yours, you can’t even _think_ with the heady waves of hot and sweet and tight, and he floods you, draining his genetic material into your seedflap.  It sits cool in your abdomen, swirling with your own, and he collapses on top of you, panting.

You didn’t imagine that there would be an afterglow following such a black and forceful fuck, but a dense calm descends on you.  You don’t feel nearly as distressed as you did before.  Annoyed, sad, and full of dim hatred for the troll breathing in the sweat on your neck, but not distressed.  Even your sadness feels less sharp.  You glance down as Eridan pushes away from you.

“Fuck,” he says, looking down at his pants.  They’re dripping with your bronze genetic fluid.  He grimaces and shoots you a look, pushing himself to his feet with some difficulty.  The corners of your mouth twitch up into a smirk.


	5. Chapter 5

“So what’s this make us, Tav?” Eridan asks as you shift to let him slide the bucket beneath you. It’s difficult to adjust yourself with your horns tied to your arms, and the shackles cut into your wrists as you pull your legs under you into a kneeling position.

“Can you maybe take the rope off?” you ask, ignoring his question.

“No,” he says. You shoot him a sour look, but he only quirks an eyebrow and waits for you to finish shifting with the bucket in hand.  Grimacing, you widen the gap between your legs enough for him to slide the pail underneath you. He stands and walks to a chair next to the table, falling into it gracelessly.  He’s now wearing nothing but a clean pair of boxers. “C’mon, Tav,” he says, eyeing you as you try to get comfortable, “you’ve been comin’ onto me pretty damn hard since last night, and then you pull this stunt.  You’re _obviously_ into me. Are we dating or what?”

“I, uh...don’t really want to have this conversation right now, while I’m trying to do this, which is an awkward thing to do in your presence, with you watching me like that,” you say. You’re embarrassed to admit that you’re a tad bucket-shy, and you’re having a lot of trouble relieving yourself of the load sitting heavy in your abdomen, pressing against your bladder, while Eridan is in the room.  You don’t think he’ll have the decency to leave you alone while you finish up, but you hope he might at least turn around.  You can feel the blush on your cheeks.

“What, you can just throw yourself on me without any warning and that’s fine, but it’s too much for me to look at you now?” he asks with the beginning of a small pout.

“Um...yeah.”

“Fuck that! If we’re gonna be a thing, I can look at you if I want.”

“I don’t know what thing we are, if we are actually a thing, but if we are a thing, I think we should establish that there are boundaries, especially since our thing-ness, if it is a thing, is new,” you say.  You hope that you haven’t agreed to anything on accident with that statement. “And, uh, one of my boundaries is that you not stare at me while I do very personal acts of hygiene, especially those of a, um, reproductive nature, involving pails.”

He rolls his eyes with a much-too-dramatic groan, but to your immense relief, he turns in his chair towards the table and drops his head into his arms.  You exhale slowly and concentrate on relaxing enough to finish your business. His presence takes up the whole room. You squeeze your eyes shut and will yourself to release, and you finally do, slowly at first but then in a wave.  The sound of the slurry hitting the metal pail makes your face go completely bronze, and you keep your eyes shut for a couple seconds after you're done.  You hope Eridan hasn’t turned back around. You know you must look mortified. At least the pressure has been taken off your bladder, and you do feel much lighter and somehow rather refreshed.

“Are you done?” Eridan ask, and you open your eyes a crack.  His head is still in his arms.  You breathe a sigh of relief.

“Yes,” you say.

He sits up and turns back around.  You look away in embarrassment as his eyes slide down your body to the bucket. You hope you’re not dripping. His bare feet pad softly across the floor, and you jump as he rests one of his hands on your hip. The genetic material in the bucket sloshes as he pulls it out from beneath you, its metal bottom scrapping on the wood beneath it.  “Gross,” he says, and when you glance at him, he’s grimacing into the bucket. His eyes flash to yours as he pushes himself to his feet, and his hand leaves your hip.

“This is stupid, Tav. What’s royalty like me doin’ mixing up my genes with the sludge that comes outta your shame globes?” he says as he walks across the room, and you’re working up the ability to look at him directly again without blushing.  The audacity of the question helps you rekindle the glare you want to be wearing. He puts a lid on the bucket and stores it in a cupboard.  As he turns around to look at you, eyes sweeping over you in an obvious appraisal, he says, “Is this what it’s come down to for me?  I mean, Vris was an obvious caliginous choice for someone’a my position, what with her blue blood and the history of our ancestors and whatnot, but what do you even got that’s worth my time?  Yeah, I guess that was a fun little go we just had, but I don’t really know if I can return your unmistakable ebony lust for me. What’s your credentials, Tav?”

You frown. You don’t really know how to respond.  If you try to defend yourself as a worthwhile black partner, would that make it seem like you actually _want_ him as a black partner?  _Do_ you want him as a black partner?  You can’t really deny that you have black feelings for him now, after allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by very powerful and very dark impulses that were clearly directed towards him, but what does that mean? You never really thought you would experience this sort of emotion, at least not like this. You always assumed your eventual kismesissitude would be built upon something more of a vague dislike or annoyance, not actual _hatred_. But here you are, and here he is. Now you have to decide if you really want to start up a kismesissitude with Eridan Ampora.

And if you do decide that’s what you want, and he decides that you’re not worth it, what then?

“I don’t know what you want me to say about credentials,” you start slowly, trying to figure out the answers to the questions firing through your think pan as you talk, “or how you want me to prove that I’m not as lame as...I maybe am, or what other people say I am, which is fine, I guess, but I do know that you failed your kismesissitude with Vriska, while I’ve gotten her to hate me—or I guess not hate me but like me, maybe, in a weird, puzzling twist of emotion that I don’t understand well—without even trying, which is better than what you’ve ever done.”

“Is this your tactic?” he asks, returning to his chair.  “You’re just always gonna sit around and taunt me about how you and Vriska _maybe_ got somethin’ goin’ on? Which is still a huge maybe in my books, by the way.”

“I, uh, don’t know,” you say, which is true.  “If you’re the jealous type, maybe I’ll do that.  Or maybe I’ll just say it occasionally, due to the fact that it makes me feel pretty smug, in a way that increases my sense of importance and general superiority in relation to you.”

He leans forward, his brow pulling down.  “Laugh if you want to, Tav,” he says, “but a troll with the dirt you got runnin’ through your veins ain’t gonna ever trump someone like me in superiority.  Your kind’s as prolific as sand on a beach, but I’m a fuckin’ gem, you got that?”

“Yeah, but I can do a lot of stuff you can’t, with my psychic powers that you don’t possess, remember? Which makes me more of a diamond than you, a troll that can’t do anything special but whine and be dramatic.”

“What is this, a pissin’ match? Are we gonna start comparin’ the size’a our bulges next?”

“You were the one who initiated the competitive urination, and I only followed suit in the spirit of contest, with a stream that you don’t want to admit is as admirable as yours, even though yours is purple and mine is a lowly brown.”

“Why the fuck would you turn that into an extended metaphor?”

“You initiated the metaphor as well, and again, I only followed suit, playing a card similar to what you laid down.”

“Wait, what metaphor are we on now? You can’t just mix metaphors together like they’re fruit in a goddamn salad.”

“Indeed, I can, and I do often, such as when I slam, which is another thing that I can surely do better than you can.”  You smile, allowing just the smallest bit of playful cockiness to pull at the corners of your mouth.  Maybe you can trick him into a slam battle and then he’ll see how talented you really are.

“Slam poetry is for wigglers,” he says, and your hopes are dashed, along with your playfulness. He really does know how to tug on your horns.

“No,” you say, “it’s for people who are good at battles of words and wits, in time sensitive situations, against opponents who have honed their skills for sweeps to be efficient at roasting their adversaries, figuratively speaking.”

“No, you’re describin’ FLARP. There ain’t no stakes in slam poetry, so it ain’t shit.”  The curve of his mouth tells you that he thinks he’s being clever.  Admittedly, he’s right, and you can’t really argue that anything is at stake in slam poetry other than personal pride. You suppress an indignant huff.

“Why does there always need to be stakes for something to be worthwhile?” you ask.  “There are a lot of fun things to do that don’t involve treasure or killing people or killing _lusus_ —“

“Would you drop it with the lusus bullshit?” Eridan groans, rolling his eyes.  “Who fuckin’ _cares_? You heard my motives, and it’s not like even you can call me the bad guy when I’m just doin’ what needs to be done.  As for all that other heap of garbage nonsense, it’s all for wigglers.  Obviously there needs to be at least treasure involved for somethin’ to be worth doin’, and a life or death struggle makes any game better. If we ain’t strugglin’ against the risk of losin’ everythin’ important, we’re not really strivin’ for anythin’, are we?”

You keep your mouth shut and examine his face, a frown pulling your lips down.  He stares back at you, narrowing his eyes as he evaluates your silence.  Finally, you shake your head.  “This way of thinking, which I think both you and Vriska share, is what makes it clear why you didn’t work out together, since you apparently are obsessed with making stakes higher and higher, but that only works for so long before it gets repetitive or predictable or too dangerous.  The stuff you say is for wigglers can go on forever if you like that sort of thing, because the challenges are about what you make them to be, and it’s about having fun instead of whatever thing it is that makes you do the things you do.”

“How the hell do you expect anyone to take you seriously?” he asks.  He’s propping his head up on a fist, one of his eyebrows cocked as he appraises you.  He apparently thinks you’re as full of shit as you think he is.  Your frown deepens.  If he wants a reason to take you seriously, you’ll remind him. Without warning, something rams the bottom of the ship, sending him flying out of his seat. The sea creature wails as it returns to the depths of the ocean.

“I don’t like doing things to hurt people, or to exert my dominance against them, because I don’t think those things are fun or fair,” you say as he picks himself off the ground, swearing, “and I don’t have good self-esteem, like what you or Vriska have, and I might not be very smart or have big goals that are reasonably attainable by someone with my life’s history and disabilities, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t make other people take me seriously if I have to, because I can. Mostly.”

“That’s a bunch of big talk for someone who just listed all their shortcomings,” Eridan says, glaring at you.  “I’m willin’ to bet the list is longer than that.  You’re less than the dirt on the bottom of my boots.  You’re just another fleck of scum I’m gonna destroy when I kill off all you land dwellin’ filth.”

“Then, uh, maybe...I’m the filth that’s going to stop you from doing those bad things, and not like in a nice way, the way a moirail might sooth you from being a genocidal maniac, but in the way an opponent might, with opposition,” you say.  That’s a bold statement.  You really don’t know if you’re the kind of person who can deliver on a proposition like that.  Kanaya might be able to, or Terezi, or Aradia...people who would feel the same way you do about Eridan’s general disposition but would have the actual mental and physical dexterity to counter him plot for plot. This isn’t up your alley. You’re picking the wrong battle against the wrong opponent.  You’re suddenly hoping that he does reject you, just to save you from committing yourself to a terrible decision.  He glares at you for a hard moment, arms crossed, looking less than imposing in his blue stripped boxers, and to your dismay, he takes a step towards you. You try not to bite your lip as he kneels down next to you.  His hand snaps up and grabs your jaw in a tight grip.

“You said you don’t wanna play games with me, not like the way Vris and I used to.  If this is the way you want it, that’s fine with me.” He leans forward and presses a rough kiss to your lips, barely giving you enough time to react before pulling away.  You blink as he stands and walks back to his chair.  He looks at you for a moment, the edge of his severity softening into what you’ve come to recognize as an immature flair for melodrama, and he says, “So we’re a thing now, right?”

With a grimace, you say, “I guess you can say that.”  What have you gotten yourself into?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the update took so long;;;

Cool mist shrouds a menacing island as it looms over the ship, all craggy mountains and severe precipices. Your eyes flick from the jagged shadows to Eridan to Vriska, who stands next to you with a scowl that seems permanently burned onto her face.  She did not enjoy her stay in the brig.  She hasn’t said a word to you, but she’s had more than enough to say to Eridan, most of which was so insulting even you were stunned speechless. Every word she spat seemed to carry the essence of their old kismesissitude.  Even though you know their black romance ran its course, you still feel as though your own exchange with Eridan seems childish in the face of Vriska’s anger.  You can’t match her in sheer venom.  You feel like a lusus plush in a pit of monsters.

“So we’re here,” Vriska sneers, her good eye trained on Eridan.  “What now, _captain_?”

“What do you think?” he says. “We’re gettin’ off this cod-forsaken theme park attraction of a pirate ship.”  He nods to a group of trolls in his crew, who turn to prepare the rowboats.  He returns his attention to the two of you, and his eyes slide to yours for a brief second before returning to Vriska’s.  “I’m goin’ first, and the two’a you are ridin’ behind me.  No _funny business_ , you got that?”  To your surprise and secret delight, the last comment was for you.

He motions to you both with a small tilt of his head, and two of the biggest trolls on the ship appear behind you, rippling with muscles and reeking of sweat.  You bite down a yelp as one picks you up and hauls you over his shoulder.  Vriska swears loudly next to you as the other does the same.  With your hands tied behind your back, there’s nothing you can do but let the brute carry you to a rowboat and drop you in.  You wordlessly thank Equius for the STRONG shell of your metallic ass.  Vriska’s organic butt does not fare as well, and she sits up with a grimace and a groan, rubbing her behind.  The two trolls clamber in behind you, followed by a few more of various size and blood caste. The rowboat lowers into the water.

“Tavros,” Vriska whispers, leaning over to you.  You glance at her.  Her eye is trained on Eridan’s boat, and you suppress a wave of self-depreciating jealousy.

“Yeah?”

“Did you get any information out of him while I was below deck?”

You bite your lip and look away.  “Not exactly,” you say. How are you supposed to tell her you were spending that precious time forming a kismesissitude instead of conducting a proper reconnaissance? 

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?”

“Uh...” You comb through your think pan for something to tell her, something to make you seem clever or at least useful.  “He said that...”

“Could you at least try to be quiet for once?” she says, nodding to the trolls behind you. You grimace.  You never were good at whispering.  You lower your voice as much as you can and try again.

“He said that he knows what you’re planning now, and he’s going to use your plan against you somehow.” The memory reminds you of another thing he said, and you turn towards her, indignation replacing your self-consciousness.  “And he said that you were planning to use me to take down a beast guarding the treasure, which is the only reason you brought me on this trip at all.”

She groans and rolls her eye. “Tavros, don’t get bent out of shape about a little thing like that,” she says.  Her hand comes up to rest on your shoulder. “We’re partners, remember? We both have jobs to do. I told you that when you first arrived, didn’t I?”

“You said you wanted to hang out, and maybe to patch the conflicts we’ve had in the past before conscription,” you say.  You hope you’re not pouting, but you might be.  “I thought that that reason was why you wanted me to come, not because you needed a tool to help you.”

“That was one of the reasons I wanted you to come.  _Trust me_ , Tavros, working things out with you does mean a lot to me.”  She raises her eyebrows and looks at you with an imploring tilt to her head, eye wide, lips pressed together.  You examine her face and feel the indignation melt away, but you still feel hurt, deep down where she’s battered you emotionally for sweeps.

“But you also want me to do something for you as well,” you say.  “You have motives that you didn’t tell me about.”

“And what about it?” she says. “Tavros, it’s like I said. I’ve been having terrible luck lately, and I need help.  _Your_ help.  You.  I need you, so I asked for you.  Is that really such a terrible thing for me to do?  Is it _bad_ now for me to reach out for the one person who could bring everything together? This whole mission is resting on you.”

Your face falls with surprise. She needs you? She _needs_ you?  _You_?  You roll her explanation around in your mind while your emotions flop over each other in your chest.  A burst of elation battles down your bitter disappointment.  You glance away and back at her, trying to figure out what you want to say.  

“Tavros, don’t give up on me now.  Eridan will say anything to put a wedge between us.  He wants that treasure.  Are you going to let him have it?”  Your mouth falls open.  Does she _know_ about you and Eridan? How does she know already? Did she sense your feelings with her mind?  But she finishes the statement with, “We’re partners, aren’t we?” and you breathe a sigh of relief. She’s just saying something anyone might say about Eridan.  And she’s probably right.  He probably was doing that.  You’re irritated by the prospect.  Now you really do want to help Vriska more than ever.

“...Okay,” you say. “Okay, I’ll help you. But, Eridan thinks that I’m not going to help you, and that you’ll force me to, which is what he wants you to do, so that it benefits him somehow.”

“We’ll just have to take him out before he knows what’s coming,” she says.

“But, isn’t that a problem, since he already knows what’s coming?”

She pauses to think. Her eye slides to yours. “He thinks we’re waxing red, right?” she says.  You feel yourself blush.

“I guess he might, but I think he actually just thinks that you’re tricking me into thinking that we’re waxing red to get what you want,” you say.  You almost add, ‘and I hope that’s not the case,’ and then, ‘...are we waxing red?’  But you don’t have the pluck to say any of that.

“In that case,” Vriska says, leaning towards you and whispering so quietly that you have to lean in as well, “we’re going to put on a show for him.  We’ll have an argument.  You’ll accuse me of tricking you into following me to the ends of the earth to earn my love, and I’ll say that Eridan was right all along and that I’m just using you.  I’ll then say something about controlling you to do my bidding, blah blah blah, etc. Basically, we’ll use overdramatic theatrics to distract Eridan, and in the meantime, you can take him out with the beast!  He can’t resist overdramatic theatrics.”

Your face breaks into a grin. “Yeah, okay!  That sounds like a good plan, one that will surely guarantee our victory.”

“Yeah!” Vriska says, cackling just loud enough to earn some looks from the other trolls on board. They’re becoming suspicious, and you both make sure to check your volume.  Vriska’s expression becomes more serious, and she looks you in the eyes.  “You _can_ act like a heartbroken idiot for a couple of minutes while taking control of that monster, can’t you?” she asks.

“Uh...” you say. Can you?  You’re not a great actor, but...with Vriska’s blue eye trained on yours, all you can say is yes.  You want the answer to be yes, even if your confidence says no. “Yeah, I think I can.”

“Great!” she says, and she pats you on the back.  “I knew I could count on you, Pupa.”

She sits upright with a smirk, sending a small, smug glance over her shoulder at the other trolls in the boat.  You straighten up as well, trying to copy her airy haughtiness, but you end up grinning devilishly. You’re going to get Eridan back for leaving you chained up all day and night again.  He’s going to realize just how worthy of an opponent you can be.

The boat hits shore before long, and the trolls toss you both out with about as much care as they put you in.  Vriska snaps some poisonous remarks at them as they push you forward, shoving you towards Eridan, who’s standing with his back to you.  You glance around as the trolls bring you to a halt.  The island is damp with mist.  Lichen grows on the rocky ledges, which push up against the shore so that only a few small patches of sand provide anchoring points for boats.  A precipice looms above you, sharp and foreboding.  Eridan is standing at the barbed entrance of a cave into the barrier of rock, the dark interior of which looks no less spiky and serrated than the rocks outside. You feel your stomach drop.

“Are you land lickin’ scum ready to trek into the very fuckin’ bowels of Alternia?” Eridan asks, looking over his shoulder.  His eyes flick to yours, and you try to wipe the consternation off your face with little success. You can’t see the smirk on his lips below his cape, but it’s in his eyes.  A pulse of hot enmity slides down your body.  You flush—or are you blushing?—and look away. You would rather he not witness your dread.

“You look like you’ve never been in a cave before,” Eridan says.  He directs the comment towards Vriska, even though you know it’s meant for you.  She frowns.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asks.  She doesn’t seem nervous.  Not the way you are.

“What about you, Tav?” he says, finally taking the jab you knew he wanted to take.  “ _Scared_?”

“Aradia and I used to go into caves all the time, looking for old ruins and archeological artifacts,” you say, straightening your back with bravado.  None of them were like this one, but you’re not lying.

His smirk is nothing but a tiny curl on his lips, out of place on his normally sour face, and it makes his enjoyment of your discomfort seem all the more sinister. You frown, feeling a swell of hate.  You suppress your black urges and look away, right into Vriska’s eye.  Her eyebrow is raised.  You hope she’s not sensing what you feel.

“Let’s get goin’, then,” Eridan says, glancing at Vriska as he turns.  His cape billows out dramatically behind him as he strolls forward, Ahab’s Crosshairs appearing in his hands.  A troll behind you shoves you forward.

Someone produces a torch. The light illuminates the uneven path as you trek down, twisting deep into the ground.  Paths separate from yours, divided from the main trail by spikes and pillars, sometimes visible for a while, sometimes plummeting into the ground so steeply they disappear into black.  As you journey deeper, a low, guttural growl echoes up the trail, so quietly at first you think it’s the troll behind you breathing down your neck.  It quickly becomes clear to all of you that it’s something else entirely, the sound of a monster waiting for you at the end of the path.  You can feel the trolls around you growing tense. You, on the other hand, have nothing to fear.  For once, you feel like the most powerful troll around.

The sound is getting closer. Eridan slows down, peeking around each sharp corner the trail takes.  He looks over his shoulder at you each time, eyes narrow, mouth turned down in a rigid frown.  You watch him, and your smile grows.  Who’s afraid of caves now?

“There it is,” he finally breathes, glancing around another corner.  He gestures for you to be brought forward.  A troll behind pushes you towards him, but he doesn’t dare come any closer.  You glance at Vriska as you sneak towards Eridan and look around the corner yourself.

The path opens into a gigantic cavern, spiky with stalactites and stalagmites and open to plenty of other pathways.  In the center rests a gigantic beast, larger by far than any lusii you have ever seen. Its enormous paws have pounded smooth large areas of the ground, and there’s evidence that it’s tried to push its way out of the cavern through a few of the larger openings leading away. Its mammoth tusks had scrapped chunks out of the stone walls, but none of the paths would ever be able to accommodate its huge body.  You glance around, concerned for a moment about its wellbeing.  Skeletons of smaller creatures, underground animals, litter the floor.  A pool of water flows into the chamber from a trickling waterfall and then out along a path. The beast is able to live, but just barely.  You wonder how it had been trapped in such a prison.

“Okay, Tav,” Eridan says, forcing your attention back to him.  He grabs you and draws you to him, extending one hand to point. “You see that?” he asks. It’s a doorway, made from stone. On it is carved...is that Feferi’s sign?  The sign of fuchsia bloods?

“...Yeah?” you say. He smells like salt and fish, but with a layer of flowers.  You turn towards him a bit.  The flowery scent is coming from his cape.  The rest of him is the fish.

“That’s where I wanna go. Get me there, and I won’t do anythin’ unfortunate to you or yours, you got it?”

“What do you mean, ‘do unfortunate things to me and mine’?  What does ‘me and mine’ mean?” 

“Who else could it mean?” Eridan says, dropping his arm from your shoulders to gesture to Vriska. You frown, taking a step away from him.

“Uh...” you say, looking at Vriska.  This would be a good time for you to say that she’s not “yours,” that she betrayed your trust, that you would never help her, all according to her plan, but you realize there’s a new problem.  If the beast can’t fit through the entrance to the path, how are you supposed to take out Eridan’s crew with it?  A distraction isn’t worth anything if you can’t do anything while your target is distracted. Vriska looks at you, her eye growing narrow as she tries to figure out why you’re stalling. You mirror her expression, thinking.  What should you do?

“Any time now would be great, Tav,” Eridan says, crossing his arm.  “If you’re tryin’ to waste my time, you’d better know that I’m not gonna put up with it.  Don’t think you get any ‘special treatment’ now, brinesucker.”

You glance at him, your mouth pulling down into a frown.  Behind him, the beast lays, head against the floor.  Its eyes are open.  It knows you’re here.  You can see a sliver of Eridan’s purple cape reflected in the dark of its pupils.

“...Let me see what I can do,” you say.  His eyes widen with surprise as you move to walk past him, but he grabs onto your arm with an iron grip.  He spins you into the wall behind him, out of view of Vriska and his crew, and pulls you so close you can feel the cool of his skin.

“If you’re agreeing to cooperate so you can pull some kind’a stunt like you did on the ship, I promise you, I’ll find a way to make you regret it,” he hisses into your ear. You heart pounds hard once at the words.

“Maybe you’re the one who will walk away with regrets, not me,” you say.  You could kiss him.  It’s okay for you to do that now, isn’t it?  You realize you’re looking down at his lips, and you return your attention to his eyes.  He probably knows what you’re thinking.  “Untie my hands,” you say.  Can he feel the heat of your breath?

“What, no ‘please’ this time?” he says.  His grip is relaxing on your arm.  You’re both standing this way because you want to.

“Aren’t you the one who wants me to do the thing for you, or should I refuse, like I was planning to do?” You’re so suave. You’re like a smooth talking cool guy.  He eyes you like he knows what’s going through your head.  After a second of hesitation, he lets his hand slide from your arm and down to the ropes binding your hands behind your back. He tugs on the knot, and the rope falls free.

“Go do what I told you to do,” he says.  “And no funny business, or I’ll blow a hole right through your...ugly fuckin’ robot legs.”

You pause. That wasn’t a death threat. As you take a step back, you smirk—a cocky smirk, like what Vriska does, if you’re at all capable of that—to let him know that you noticed.  You look beyond him as you step into the cavern, glancing towards Vriska. Her mouth is open, and not in a happy way.  You wave at her sheepishly before turning around.

The beast has raised its head. It could crush you with nothing but its skull.  You approach it slowly, reaching out with your mind.  It stays calm as you come closer.  It’s malleable, like most creatures are, open to suggestions and willing to trust.  You feel a pang of sympathy for the deep rage and sorrow that you feel running as a constant undercurrent in its heart.  You had guessed right: it hates its prison in this cavern, and it wants to be free.  You wish you could help it, but you know you can’t do anything for it.  Unless...

You pause and look over your shoulder.  Eridan is still carrying Ahab’s Crosshairs tucked beneath his armpit.  If you could blast your way out...but how could you possibly take Eridan’s weapon and lead the beast to freedom while the rest of his crew is waiting to kill it?

You look at it. You’re reflected in the orb of its eye.  You’re going to have to come up with a plan, but you’re not a plan maker.  Your plans never turn out the way you want. You’re not clever enough or smart enough to think on your feet like this, not the way Vriska is. You take a deep breath. You’ll have to try something, even if it’s fruitless.  Turning back to Eridan, you say, “I have it under control, and if you don’t kill it, I promise I’ll keep it that way so you can pass.”

Eridan frowns. “How do you expect me to believe you when the last time I had you handle a delicate operation involvin’ lusus, you fucked everything up?”

“I...” you say, and you falter.  “Maybe, what I really want right now, more than to help you or hurt you, is to help this lusus, who wants to be free.  See, if you look at the walls, it doesn’t want to be here anymore.  Maybe that’s more important to me than what you or Vriska wants.”

His frown deepens. You can see Vriska, shrouded in the shadow of the dark overhang, glaring at you.  Fuck...if she thinks you’re betraying her, she can take over your mind.  What are you supposed to do then?

“Any funny business, Tav...any at all, I’ll be grindin’ your face into the bottom of the ocean as you turn blue from lack’a oxygen, you got it?” Eridan says.  Your eyes snap to him.  Slowly, you nod.  You still don’t know what you should do.  Should you try to go back to the original plan? Should you...attack him now? But he’s armed, and he doesn’t trust you.  _Fuck_ , what do you _do_?

Trolls filter into the cavern, eyes on the beast.  You will it to lie still, even though its instincts tell it to go on the defensive. A muscled troll pushes Vriska forward, and she keeps glaring at you, seething.  “Tavros, you sack of shit!  I should have known.  You’re with _him_ , now, aren’t you?” she says, motioning to Eridan with a nod of her head.  Your face falls.

“No,” you say, holding your hands up.  “I swear, I—“

“Don’t play dumb, you blubbering idiot!  You played me for a fool!  Acting like you were on my side when you were planning _this_ the whole time!  How’s your new _kismesissitude_ working out?”

“Uh...”

“The pickings must be slim for you to move in on my ex, just _days_ after professing your feelings for me.  I thought there was really some chemistry between us, but _noooooooo_ , you were really just about Ampora the whole time, weren’t you?  I thought you had a thing for me, Tavros!  I thought _we_ had a thing!”

Wait...what? You lower your hands and stare at her, gaping openly.  She’s...is she doing what you think she’s doing?  You glance at Eridan, mouth still open.  His mouth is open, too.  His eyes flash to yours.  He closes his mouth and straightens his back as though he hadn’t been caught gaping like a moron.

“What the hell is this about?” he asks, looking between the two of you.

“I...well...” you say. What are you supposed to say? You bite your lip and adopt your best look of determination.  “How...how was I supposed to be into someone like you, Vriska, when, uh...you were the one who pushed me off that cliff, dooming me to this life of, um, despondency? Obviously I was lying to you. I’ve, uh...got better things going now, with someone who...I hate, a lot.”  You blush to your ears, but you see a subtle shift in Vriska’s expression.  She knows you’re playing along. 

“Wait, _what_?” Eridan says, growing more confused by the second. “Okay, we all need to calm the fuck down and tell me what’s happening.  Tav, what’s this about?  You’re on my side now?  Are you betraying Vris just ‘cause we happened to have a fling?”

“Uh, yes.  Because of that fling, I am now more, uh, in tune with you, as far as allies go, than I am with Vriska, who I realized was trying to use me, like she always does.  Now, even though I find everything about you despicable, besides the admittedly nice streak of color in your hair, I am aligning myself with you and using this opportunity to get back at someone who wronged me.”

“You’ve always hated Eridan. You were jealous of us, even back when we were still dating,” Vriska says.  Your attention snaps to her, and you try not to grimace. She’s laying it on a bit thick now. Your blush deepens.

“Wait, so what you’re sayin’ is this is some big ploy on his part to get into my pants?” Eridan asks. He glances at you, eyebrows raised.  “Fuckin’ hell, you could’a just called or somethin’, it’s not like I’ve got anythin’ goin’ on most of the damn time anyway.”

“Uh...”

“He wanted revenge! Revenge on me, for ruining his life and flirting with you for so long,” Vriska says.  Okay, this is getting a bit out of hand for you. Maybe you should start working on destroying Eridan’s entire crew with the beast.  It’s bigger than you thought it’d be, though...it’s going to be tough to move it without alerting everyone around.  But with their guards down...maybe you could just do a quick surprise attack?

Vriska sees you floundering. For a brief second, you think you see her roll her eye, but she’s immediately back in character. “If this is how you want it to end, Tavros, I’m not going down without a fight!  Even though you have that _massive beast on your side_ which could clearly be used as a _weapon_ against _me_ , allowing _Eridan to sneak past you_ , since you’re totally _on his side now_ , I’m still a match for you!”

Oh, you get it now! Eridan’s eyes flash to yours. Vriska was right—he’s completely invested in this sudden and dramatic change of events. You can’t help but grin, but it’s in character enough for you to do so.  “If you think you can defeat me, particularly now when I have this monster, which you brought me to pacify but now in an ironic twist is being used against you as a weapon, then you’re mistaken!” The beast stands up behind you, and Eridan’s crew scrambles away from Vriska, huddling behind Eridan. They all stand dumbly, watching the scene play out as though it were some midday soap opera. You put your hands to your head and concentrate.  They turn towards Vriska with expectation, waiting for the beast to lunge. Instead, it wails and turns, and with a swipe of its mighty tail, the trolls in Eridan’s crew are sent flying into the spiky walls.  Eridan is thrown into the air with them.  Your pump biscuit seizes, and just in time, the beast raises its paw, halting Eridan’s forward momentum.  He falls to the ground with a heavy thud and a loud groan.  Out of the corner of your eye, you see his crew scrambling towards the exits of the cavern.  You don’t check to see if any were impaled on the jagged walls.

“What the everlovin’ _fuck_?” Eridan demands, sitting upright.  His glasses are askew, his hair’s a mess, and he dropped Ahab’s Crosshairs several feet from him. The beast’s paw drops on the weapon and drags it away.

“You moron!” Vriska says, stepping forward and laughing.  She laughs and laughs, bending over and wrapping her arms around her stomach. “Oh god, Tavros and I got you _so good_.  Where’s your crew now, Dualscar?”  You can’t help it.  You start to laugh, too.

“Hell _yes_ ,” you say, “you’re so beat!  You should’ve seen your _face_!”

Eridan’s eyes flash to yours. “You were plannin’ this all along!”

“You bet we were!” Vriska says before you can dish out a reply.  She walks towards you and flings an arm around your shoulder. “How’s that for partners? And you thought you had us! When are you going to learn?”

“This isn’t over yet!” Eridan snarls, scrambling to his feet.  You look up at the beast.  It swats Ahab’s Crosshairs to you, and you reach down to pick it up.  The rifle feels awkward and heavy in your arms, but you hold it as though you know what you’re doing.

“Are you sure that it’s not over?” you say.  His face falls. His eyes flick to yours, and in them, you see what you’ve been wanting to see since you kissed him in the captain’s quarters.  If he thought you were going to be an easy or boring kismesis, a fling to cure his boredom, he’s seriously rethinking that assumption now.  Your triumph feels delicious.

“Okay, well,” Vriska says, patting you once on the back, “you watch Eridan.  _I’m_ going to go get that treasure.”

Your face falls, and you look at her with surprise.  “But...don’t you want us to go with you?” you ask.

“I figured I’d give you two some time alone,” she says.

Eridan straightens his back as she walks past him, trying to wipe the fury off his face.  “So he told you,” he says, eyeing her.

“Pff, like he had to _tell_ me.”

Eridan glances at you, and you blush.  “Uh...”

“But you care, don’t you? Isn’t this a staggerin’ an’ disconcertin’ change of events for you?” Eridan asks, turning around to face her.  “Aren’t you _jealous_?”

“Of that?” she says, gesturing to both of you with a wave of her hand.  She raises an eyebrow.  “ _Please_ , as though you’re actually going to work together.  You might as well make it fun while it lasts.  Knock yourselves out, kids, I have treasure to get.”

Both you and Eridan gape as she turns on her heels and walks away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nsfw chapter warning

You shift on your feet, gripping Ahab’s Crosshairs against your chest in a way you know betrays your uncertainty.  He’s studying you.  He must be planning something, but you have no idea what it is.  But what can he possibly do?  You remind yourself that he’s unarmed and you’ve got a gigantic beast at your command.  And when Vriska comes back, she’ll be able to take control of his think pan, rendering him even more harmless.  You’re totally way in control right now.  You’ve got this.

You jump when he takes a step forward.  “So, Tav...that was pretty sneaky’a you.  Didn’t know you had it in you, to be honest.”

His lidded eyes are trained on you as he takes another step forward.  You don’t really know how to respond.  “Uh, yeah.  I did.  I mean, I do. I can be sneaky and generally underhanded like the way you are if I really want to be.”

“So all that stuff about you havin’ that huge black crush on me for so long...I’m guessin’ that was all fake bs, too.”  He takes another step.

“Uh, yeah, truthfully, I only recently decided that...um.”  He takes another step.  You really should stop him.  You could let the beast swat at him a bit.  But the way his anger swirls in his eyes is making your stomach do flips, and your breath is growing shallower with every step.  The aftermath of your triumph is melting into a heady desire to grab hold of his throat and push your lips to his.  But you can’t have him that close right now when you still have things to do.

“So I underestimated you. What now?” he asks, getting closer at the same slow pace.  He must know what you’re thinking.  It must be so obvious to him.  And you’re kind of hoping he wants the same thing you do.

“Now, I, um, do the thing, that I’ve been planning myself, without Vriska,” you say, gripping Ahab’s Crosshairs a little tighter.

“Yeah?  And what’s that?”

You inhale through you nostrils and raise Ahab’s Crosshairs.  Eridan has barely any time to react before you point it at one of the exits to the cavern and fire a blue beam of pure energy through the hole. The recoil is more than you anticipated, and your clumsy legs let you down.  You fall to your ass.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you veritable fuckin’ lunatic?” Eridan snaps, staring at you. The beast has turned, its muzzle raised with anticipation.  Rocks fall from the ceiling of the tunnel you shot at.

Scrambling to your feet, you raise Ahab’s Crosshairs again.  “I’m doing the thing I told you I would do when I followed your orders,” you say, and you fire again, this time at upward angle.  You don’t know how far the surface is from where you stand, but you know the path you took to the chamber was less steep than the hole you’re blasting through the rock, so it shouldn’t take too long to break through to fresh air.  This time, you’re prepared for the kick back, and you somehow manage to stay standing on your shaky legs.  You let up for a second to gauge the size of the hole and fire one more time.

The beast lets out a tremendous howl.  Even though rocks are still falling down the massive hole, you allow it to run forward and push itself in.  To your delight, it fits. You hear it clambering and clawing upwards to freedom.  A feeling of accomplishment fills you, and you grin.

“Sucker,” you hear Eridan mutter from behind you, and your legs are kicked out from underneath you. You fall to the ground with a yelp, and Eridan’s on top of you, wrestling Ahab’s Crosshairs from your grip. You try to hold on, but he yanks himself away, both arms wrapped around the rifle, and gives you a swift kick in the face.  You fall backwards, rattled.  When you get your bearings straight again, you’re staring up the barrel of the gun.

“You really are an absolute idiot,” Eridan says.  His mouth twists into a diabolical smirk, and his eyes almost shimmer with the glee of victory. You can sense a sharp edge of malicious anticipation in his gaze.  “Do you really expect me to believe you had anything to do with that little stunt you an’ Vris pulled back there?  I bet the plan was all hers.  You’re a pathetic grub with tar for a think pan who’d rather throw away his only weapon than better an adversary.  You ain’t got shit on me.”

“No, I do,” you say, trying to control your pounding pump biscuit.  “Just because I let the beast out doesn’t mean I can’t call it back at any point in time, so you’d better lower your weapon, if you know what’s good for you.”

His smirk fades as he considers your statement.  “Get up,” he says with a sharp bark.  When you hesitate, he blasts a hole in the floor next to you.  You jump to your feet.  As soon as you’re standing, he grabs your arm and turns you towards the tunnel you came down.  You feel the rifle pressed against your back.  “Walk,” he orders, “quickly, or I’ll destroy your stupid fuckin’ legs and drag your sorry ass.”

You bite your lip and do as you’re told.  You know the beast is too far away to call back fast enough to save you.  Once you’re in the narrow pathway, you’re at Eridan’s mercy.  The thought steals your breath away, but whether it’s the good or bad kind of breathlessness, you can’t tell.

With only you and Eridan in the tunnel, your footsteps echo, ringing through the darkness. You can hardly see. You don’t remember how long it took you to travel its whole length, and you wonder if Eridan’s crew would be waiting with the ship.  It’s more likely they left him stranded with you and Vriska.  And even if they had waited, would Eridan simply leave, allowing Vriska to claim whatever treasure they were both hunting for in the first place?  Or would he try to ambush her?  Would Vriska bother to rescue you?  You have no idea what your fate will be.

Without warning, Eridan’s voice cuts through the darkness, and you jump.  “Stop walkin’,” he orders.  You feel Ahab’s Crosshairs drop from your back. You turn to look over your shoulder, and Eridan catches you with a sharp cuff to the hear duct. Before you know what’s happening, he’s shoving you off the main path into an even narrower tributary, pressing you into a wedge between the barbed outcroppings on the wall. His hands find your hips and his mouth finds yours.  The tension and exhilaration of the night’s events break into a sudden, overwhelming wave of arousal that courses through you so hard and fast you can’t even think. You let his tongue into your mouth and reach up to the clasps on his cape.  It falls from his shoulders.  Your shirt’s lifted up, and his fingers play over your pupation scars and run down your ribs.  In mere seconds, his shirt and scarf join his cape on the floor. You’ve lost track of his hands.

“You smug little fuck,” he hisses into your mouth.

“No, you’re smug,” you breathe back, and you bite down on his lip.  The skin of his torso is cool and slick, and you pull him as close to you as possible.  He presses down on one of your pupation scars enough to hurt.  You can’t tell if he’s still wearing pants.

“I’m gonna fuck you until your tin can nook splits in half,” he says.  His claws rake down your back.

“Not if I—“ you begin, but he kisses you again, and the taste of his salty blood floods your mouth. You reach down and grip his bare ass, almost hard enough to pull him off the floor.  Wherever his pants went, they’re no longer an obstacle for you.

You gasp as his bulge twists around yours, tight, cool, and unforgiving, the film of his genetic material allowing the skin to slide over yours so unbelievably smooth you can hardly stifle your voice.  You grind against him and he grinds back, your bulges squirming between you, pressed up against both of your abdomens, yours warm, his cool.  He shoves his leg between yours and thrusts it up against your slick nook.  You release a heady hum from deep in your throat as you slide yourself against his thigh. His claws drag down your back again, his teeth are at your throat.  You can hear him murmuring words you hardly process.

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard your ancestor will feel it,” he says, his voice low and guttural. His leg pulls away from your nook, and he drops, dragging his nails over your skin on the way down. You release a sharp squeal and claw at the rock around you as he yanks your legs from under you by the knees and slams you against the wall.  He holds you there, pinning you with all his weight as he adjusts his grip on your legs.  You let your claws sink into his shoulder.  His eyes seem to shine in the darkness, hungry and vengeful.  He almost does look like a monster.

You aren’t expecting the slick tip of his bulge to enter your nook when it does, but your gasp turns into a moan as he thrusts up, sliding in deep.  You try to hold yourself steady on the wall as he finds the best angle, but your muscles feel shaky with the sudden wave of pleasure. He lets gravity bring you down on him, deeper than before.  “Ah...hnn...” you breathe, hardly able to stay silent.  He moves in you.  You push back against the cold stone, and he digs his forehead into your shoulder and bites down hard.

“Don’t you fuckin’ try to tell to me you ain’t a needy bitch,” Eridan says, thrusting up and squirming inside you like a screw.  The arm you have pressed against the stone wall for support is feeling weak. The arm latched around Eridan’s shoulder is drawing blood at the claws.  He’s not moving fast enough for you.

“Stop talking,” you say, “and hurry up.”  He bites you again, hard enough to distract you for a second, but he pulls out and slams back up into you so hard and deep you feel your mind go white.  You moan, loud enough to elicit a smug snicker from him, and he does it again.  He hits that sweet place just before the entrance of your seedflap and slides his bulge around it, drawing another breathy moan from you.  You’re not going to be able to hold yourself up.

“If this is the way you want it,” he says, picking up his pace and allowing gravity to help him reach places in you neither of you knew existed.  You give up on the wall and hold onto his shoulders, producing pretty lines of violet blood as you draw your nails up his back. The sting seems to fuel him, and he slams into you, growling obscenities and breathless insults. Your bare back is rubbing raw against the rock behind you.  Your bulge twists with each thrust.

“Eridan—fuck,” you say, almost with a whine, as he thrusts faster and harder, relentless, his own voice lost in his pleasure.  Maybe he really is trying to fuck you so hard your ancestor feels it.  You’re getting so close, you might not be able to last much longer.  You grab onto a fistful of his hair and let your voice do whatever it wants, producing sharp, animal moans from deep in your throat.  He seems to like it, and his bulge squirms inside you, thrashing against that sensitive place that makes your mind go white.  A wave of unbelievable euphoria, pleasure so rough and intense it seizes your whole body, crashes through you.  Your back arches and your hips jerk, and Eridan still slams into you, swearing.  Your body goes limp as his tightens, and you feel the flood of his genetic material fill you.  You barely get your feet beneath you as he lets his weight fall against you.  You want to collapse to the floor.

You’re both panting. You let your hands slide down his back, dragging the cool liquid of his blood down with them.  You take a glance.  There’s not nearly as much violent as you thought there’d be on your palm.  You’ll have to try better next time.  Almost as though Eridan’s thinking the same thing, he bites you again on the shoulder, jolting you out of your afterglow.

“Ow!” you say, pushing him away. He takes a step back and readjusts his glasses.

“You messed up my fuckin’ hair, you harlot bastard,” he says, and he’s right.  You examine the chunk of tormented locks sticking up at the back of his head and grin.

“It’s better than you looked before,” you say.  He throws you a scathing look and bends down to pick up his pants.

“He’s right, that’s a _waaaaaaaaay_ better look for you, Eridan.” You and Eridan both jump. At the entrance to the narrow offshoot path Eridan shoved you into, Vriska leans against the wall, a glimmering trident held against her body with her crossed arms.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And after the longest hiatus ever............the last chapter.

You hate walking around with genetic material sitting in your abdomen, but you won’t have much of a choice this time. You hastily wipe yourself off with Eridan’s cape while he’s distracted and try not to blush too much as you slip your shirt back on. Eridan doesn’t move to get dressed. He holds his pants in front of him and glares at Vriska, his eyes flicking from hers to the trident. “So you found the treasure,” he says.

“I win, Dualscar,” Vriska says with a smirk. “Or I guess I should say _we_ win, since Tavros seems to have found himself a different sort of prize.”

You duck your face, which is so hot you’re sure you must be glowing. You can’t believe she saw you. You’re never going to be able to live this down. You glance at Eridan, and to your surprise, he’s got a fair amount of purple on his own cheeks. That makes you feel a little better.

“Don’t get cocky, Mindfang,” he says. “This campaign ain’t over until the trident’s in the heiress’s hands. Don’t think I’m just gonna sit down and let you steal away the glory.”

“Wait, so, we’re not finished yet?” you ask, your nutrition sack sinking. You don’t know if you can handle much more of this campaign.

“Obviously not,” Vriska says. “What do you think I want with a _trident_? This is nothing but a bartering chip, pupa, and we’ve got business to attend to!”

“Bartering chip, my ass!” Eridan bites back. “I’m not gonna stand by and let you try’n pass some kinda underhanded dealings with Fef when she’s got better things to be worryin’ about!”

“Like your motives are so much more _noble_ ,” Vriska sneers. “You just want to buy Feferi’s affections with a shiny new legendary weapon.”

Eridan’s violet blush deepens, and you can almost hear his teeth grinding together. “I ain’t tryin’a buy shit. That’s just what moirails do. They look after their pale partner and go on epic adventures against all odds to bring them home critically important strategic artifacts for their future wars.”

“Don’t you mean _ex­_ -moirail?” Vriska says. “Or should I say, would-be matesprit?”

“You shut your protein chute!”

“Uh, so, wait, the next part is we just need to give the weapon, which is apparently important for some legendary reason, to Feferi?” you ask.

“We’re not just going to _hand it over_ , Tavros,” Vriska says. She keeps her eyes on Eridan, whose scowl deepens as her smirk grows. “After conscription, Feferi is going to have to challenge Her Imperial Condescension for the throne. She’s going to need all the help she can get, and a legendary weapon that was hidden deep underground by her ancestor eons ago is exactly what she needs to get an extra edge! Allies like us can’t hurt, either. But we’re going to need a reasonable assurance that all of this work will be worth it in the end for us, right? So we have some _negotiations_ to make before we offer up our treasure and services.”

“Our…services?” you repeat.

“Yes, Tavros. Our services. You do want a job when you become an adult instead of flying straight into slavery like half the rest of your blood caste, right?”

“Uh…”

“See? I’ve been looking out for you this whole time! And you thought this was going to be just a fun little game to play before we left Alternia.”

“ _Uh_ …”

“You won’t be leavin’ Alternia in one piece if I got anything to say about all this hogwash,” Eridan spits. “I ain’t about to let you throw Fef under the hoofbeast for your own egomaniacal self-aggrandizement.”

Instead of answering him, Vriska looks at you. “I was the one who found out about the treasure,” she says, ignoring his outraged huff. “ _He_ was the one who wanted to turn it into a game, so that when he brings the treasure back to Feferi, he can act like a battle-worn hero about it. Like _that’s_ going to happen.”

“This campaign ain’t over yet!” he barks again.

“But when _we_ bring the trident to Feferi, we can make sure we’re sitting pretty for the rest of her new reign. How’s that sound, pupa?”

You’re honestly at a loss for words. Everything is starting to sound even crazier than it already did, and you can hardly believe that’s possible. This whole campaign was always some big contest to see who can get a legendary weapon to a friend in order to help her overthrow the empress? Isn’t that end goal _way_ more important than whatever petty things they’re arguing about now? Why is this a game at all? You look between them, mouth open, but neither of them seem to notice your astonishment. If it wasn’t apparent to you before, you realize now that, without a shadow of a doubt, they’re both batshit insane.

You also realize that you might actually have to do something about this. Something brave and heroic. Both of those things are traits that you wish you had but know you don’t.

“Can we just…go?” you ask weakly.

“My thoughts exactly,” Vriska says. “Ampora, would you put your fucking pants on?”

“I thought you liked the view,” Eridan says with a sour sneer.

“Someone here does,” Vriska retorts, glancing pointedly at you. Your blush fires back up, and Eridan looks at you over his shoulder with smoldering eyes. He doesn’t comment, but when he goes to put on his pants, you think there’s something more performative than usual in the way he moves. It’s hard to tell with him, though.

“Tavros, you take the front. I’ll take the rear,” Vriska says, pointing with the trident. She lobs Ahab’s Crosshairs to you. You fumble the rifle, and Eridan grimaces. “And whatever happened back in that cavern to land the two of you here, let’s not do that again, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” you say. You begin the trek out of the cave. The whole time, you imagine that you can feel Eridan’s eyes on the back of your head, and the vivid image of his eyes in the dark as he fucked you burns in your think pan. It sends shivers up your spine, but you don’t turn around. You try to trust that Vriska has your back. But after this campaign and everything that’s happened, you’re back to your previous feelings about trusting Vriska Serket. How do you always find yourself in this position?

The pink light from the moon glows through the entrance of the cave, and you’re glad to feel the salty air on your face again. You take in a deep breath. You’ve always liked how it feels to come out of a stuffy dungeon and into the open air, even though you usually didn’t feel this unaccomplished after a campaign with Aradia. You suddenly miss Aradia a whole lot.

“They stole the fuckin’ ship!” Eridan says with an outraged edge to his voice.

“What did you expect? It’s not like they were doing any of this out of love for you,” Vriska says. She goes to the water’s edge and looks out at the ocean. The ship is not visible on the horizon, which you think is weird. Maybe they went around the island.

“Why the hell’re you so calm about it?” Eridan says. “You’re stranded here without a ship! At least I can fuckin’ swim.”

“I got Tavros,” she says breezily. “Right?” She glances at you with a smirk, and you really don’t know how to respond. You’ll never understand how she manages to make you feel both used and useful at the same time.

“Um…I’m just going to, uh…clean up, a little bit,” you say, pointing to the water. The genetic material is still sitting heavy in your abdomen. You feel really awkward about handling it this way, but you’re not about to deal with it for the rest of whatever the two of them have planned.

“Gross, Tavros. You don’t have to announce that sort of thing,” Vriska says, but Eridan flares up.

“You’re just gonna _waste_ it?”

“Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to hook up in the middle of nowhere without a pail,” Vriska retorts. You don’t wait to hear them squabble about it. You go and sit in the water, concentrating on taking care of business. You glance over your shoulder as they exchange remarks and insults. They aren’t paying attention to you at all. That’s good for your shyness about these sorts of things, but you also realize that you have a unique opportunity in this situation. You look over the ocean and send out a psychic message to some marine friends.

“Uh,” you say, returning to the two of them a few minutes later, “so…what’s the next step, to make the plan happen?” You don’t actually really care. You’re forming your own plan. It’s not a good plan by a stretch of the imagination, but it’s something, which is all you can do at this point. You just have to be not obvious about your planning and to get the trident away from both of them. You’re not very confident about your ability to achieve either of those two goals.

“The next step, Tavros,” Vriska says, looking smugly at Eridan, “is getting Feferi over here for negotiations, which shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll just tell her where we are and make it apparent that we have urgent business.” She pulls her phone out with a smirk and begins to type out a message.

“Like hell you will!” Eridan snaps, diving for the phone. Vriska lets out a string of interesting expletives as Eridan wrestles her to the ground, and you watch as the spat turns into a brawl. This wasn’t part of your plan, but you’re pretty sure it’s the best thing you could have hoped for anyway, since the trident is now laying completely unguarded while Vriska and Eridan struggle over the phone. You sidestep over and grab it. You’re now as far as you got in terms of planning ahead, so you do the next best thing you can think of without actually thinking very much. You jog away as sneakily as possible while the two of them are busy punching each other in the face and breaking each other’s’ glasses. The beach is narrow, and you have to scramble over slick rocks to make any progress. Your robolegs aren’t helping you much now. You just need to get out of sight, and then…

As soon as you can do it safely, you lob the trident as far into the ocean as you can. It hits the water with a small ploop. Below the surface, a serpentine sea monster waits to grab the trident in its mouth and carry it away to Feferi’s hive.

And that’s it. It’s gone. You can’t believe it. Your plan worked.

“Tavros!” Vriska’s voice shrieks through the fog. Your senses blur, and when you regain control, you’re standing in front of Vriska and Eridan, and they are both _pissed_.

“Where is it?” Vriska demands.

“Where is what?” you ask, as though your face doesn’t give you away immediately.

“You fuckin’ know what we’re talking about!” Eridan says. “The fuckin’ treasure! Where’d you hide it?”

Oh. “Uh, I definitely hid it,” you say, thinking as quickly as you can with the two of them glaring at you. “Somewhere where you will never find it, until I can tell Feferi where it is.”

“Tavros, you and I both know that’s not the way this is going to play out,” Vriska says. “If you don’t fess up right now, I’ll make you take us there the hard way.”

You freeze. If she figures out what you did, she’ll make you call back the sea monster. You have to stall for time. “Uh,” you say, glancing at Eridan. “I, uh…threw it into the ocean, where it sunk into the rocky depths, probably falling into a dark sea cave, where only someone who can breathe underwater could possibly find it.”

Eridan narrows his eyes, and Vriska lets out an explosive groan. “Why would you do that?” she asks. “Do you _want_ to give this asshole an advantage?”

“Uh…um…” you say, swallowing. Your eyes lock onto Eridan’s. “At least he plans to give the trident to Feferi nicely, without forcing negotiations onto her, with potential long term consequences.”

“Those negotiations that I plan to ‘force’ onto Feferi are going to save your ass and offer you more in life than a troll of your station could ever hope for!” Vriska says, almost with enough exasperation to make you feel bad. “I’m _looking out for you_ , you spongeless moron! You have no legs! You’re going to get screwed over off-planet, don’t you realize that?”

You frown. You don’t know about any of that, and you’ve also been trying hard not to think about it too much, but a little bubble of resentment pops anyway. “I’m pretty sure that, the only reason you factored me into those plans at all, is because you didn’t know what to do with the beast, and so I became a necessary tool in your plan, and then you decided you would have to reward me for helping somehow, which is why you’re making all of this up.”

“Ha!” Eridan says, turning to Vriska. “Are you wishin’ you kept this between the two’a us yet, Mindfang?”

“Shut up and go get the trident!” Vriska snaps. His eyes go glossy, and without another word, he walks into the water. Vriska glares at the waves, saying nothing to you. You try to hold onto your resolve to be resentful of her actions towards you, but as the minutes wear on, you start to feel a little bad. What if she actually did want to help you out from the start? What if she really wanted to give you a better life as an adult? Maybe she’s right and your prospects are that grim. You don’t have any skills, really, and you are a brownblood. That usually doesn’t mean anything good for adult trolls. What if you do get funneled into the slave market? Are you going to spend your whole adulthood shoveling hoofbeast shit? Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, though. Maybe it would be better than following Vriska around on her mean-spirited and dangerous adventures. Or maybe it wouldn’t be. You don’t know. You don’t know anything. You just want to do the right thing and be happy.

Minutes turn into hours. Vriska finds a place to sit, and you can see her growing angrier as time passes. You sit as far away from her as you can manage and work up the nerve to sneak your phone out. You send a message to Feferi telling her to expect a delivery, making sure to emphasize that she should let you know if she gets it. Her hive is a long way away, and you don’t know how fast the sea monster travels. You hope it won’t take longer than a night for it to get there.

“What is taking so long?” Vriska finally shouts as dawn begins to break over the horizon. “Did you throw the damn thing across the world?”

“Uh,” you say, “well, I was in that wheeled device for a long time, and so have unusually strong upper body strength.”

“I can’t believe you, Tavros!” she says, turning on you. “We were partners! And what do you do the second I turn my back? Betray me! You may as well have just handed it right to him! I didn’t expect you to be the kind to trip all over himself over a new black crush, but you really proved me wrong, didn’t you?”

You have to work extra hard to remind yourself not to feel bad this time, but you’re not doing a good job of it. “I just didn’t want to play this game anymore,” you say. “I don’t think it should have been a game in the first place.”

“Do you think your future is a game?” she spits. “Do you think _my_ future is a game? Do you think overthrowing the empress is a game? Why do you hate the idea of being a part of something important so much? Are you really just that pathetic?”

“No, I don’t think any of those things are games, which is why I think it’s weird that we’re playing a game to do any of those things,” you say.

“Why _wouldn’t_ we play a game to do something important if it makes what we do even more important?” she say. “Besides, the rules of the game kept Eridan from rushing off and stealing it by himself. It’s _strategy_ , Tavros, which is obviously something too advanced for your linear think pan. Games are one way of tricking people into doing what you want while making them think they’re doing what _they_ want.”

“So, kind of how you tricked me to come all the way out here, without telling me at all why you wanted me to come,” you say, rekindling a spark of your resentment.

“Fine,” Vriska says, throwing up her hands. “Fine! I tricked you. I’ve been having shit luck and I wanted help with the monster. Are you happy now that I’ve said it? Do you want me to write you a letter of apology?”

“Yes,” you say, but you do feel better. Triumphant, in a small way. You finally got Vriska Serket to be upfront with you, which means you were a big enough pain in her ass to force her hand. You like that feeling.

“I’ll send it to you when we’re off-planet,” she says dryly. “I’ll be somewhere doing awesome things, and you’ll be filing some gross highblood’s claws.”

Your phone sounds before you can respond. The first message is a picture of Feferi with the trident, her eyes lit up with a mixture of awe and delight. The next few messages are a string of excited questions that you think are probably rhetorical. Your face breaks into a grin.

“What are you so damn happy about?” Vriska demands. You turn your phone to her. She gets up and walks over to you, and the look on her face is so perfect, you wish you could frame it and hang it up in your hive.

“I fooled you!” you say, your grin turning into gleeful laughter. “You were sitting here waiting for Eridan to find the treasure, but the treasure wasn’t here all along! How does it feel, knowing that you, who tricked me into following your plans, were in the end tricked by me into following my plans? How does it feeeeeeel, knowing that you were outsmarted by the same person you once thought was not smart at all, and who you erroneously accused of being too hate-smitten to think right? You really thought I was just going to let Eridan have it! Oh, man, it feels good to be undeniably clever, and to do something better than you did, by winning the game that you set up to win yourself, with my unknowing help as your tool!  You were so owned!  So OWNED!” You continue laughing, overcome with the pure adrenaline of actually winning against Vriska Serket. You won. You got the treasure to its destination, and you didn’t even have to be awful or two-faced. To the wrong person, that is.

Vriska stares at you for a minute before saying, “Here, I’ll let you say all of that to Eridan when he gets back over here.”

You laughter stutters to a halt, but not because you’re afraid of Eridan’s wrath. You did it. You proved yourself to be an adversary that could successfully foil his plans and be clever enough to take him on. Realizing that fact brings on a different kind of emotion than glee, one that makes your blood pusher pound and your cheeks grow hot.

It takes Eridan a while to get back to the beach, but when he does, he’s wet and cranky as hell. “Are you done playin’ me like a fuckin’ puppet?” he snaps at Vriska as soon as he’s in hearshot. “Or are we callin’ quits for the morning until the sun goes back down? Do you plan on sending me back out at dusk?”

“Tavros has a message for you,” Vriska says, almost just as cranky as he is. He looks at you. Your grin comes back full force, and you lift your phone up for him to see the picture of Feferi.

He looks at the picture, then at you, then back at the picture, then back at you. The shock and outrage of the realization dawns on his face in such a slow, satisfying way that you almost want to dance. It’s so perfect. You suddenly feel like the best troll on Alternia. “I win,” you say. “What were you saying again, about being better than me? Are you starting to rethink your assumptions about choosing to underestimate me as a potential rival and as an official black partner? How does it feel now, to know that a troll that you once thought was—”

You barely duck the punch aimed at your face, and Eridan barrels at you, throwing both of you to the ground. “I spent all fuckin’ night searching for that legendary piece of shit!” he says, struggling against your arms as you push back against him. “You lying sack of garbage, don’t you look at me like that and say you won! Wipe that shit-eating grin off your goddamn face, you sludge-blooded, ass-lickin’, dirt-scrappin’, smug, _fuckin’_ —”

You can’t stop laughing. His insults feel so good when you know they’re wrong, especially when you know he knows they’re wrong. He can’t stop you from being the winner by being mean or losing his temper. The winner is you. You grab him by the back of his head and pull him into a kiss, and when you let go, he sits up, bright-eyed and flushed a rich shade of violet. He’s so mad. Your triumph solidifies into a firm sense of affection that feels almost malicious, but in a way that fills you with glee.

“Are you both done yet?” Vriska snaps, slicing through your triumph. “Now that we’ve established that Tavros fucked everyone over, I’m getting a little sick of this flirtatious bullshit.”

“You brought him!” Eridan says.

“And looks like you reaped the benefits of that arrangement far more than I did!” she says, gesturing grandly to the two of you sprawled out on the sand. “I don’t get shit! I don’t even get a cut of the winnings. Feferi’s got the treasure, and I’m still a nobody who’s probably going straight into freelance piracy after conscription.”

“What was the other option, if you got the treasure to Feferi?” you ask, dumping Eridan off of you.

“Tavros, I explained this to you already. We were going to join up with her and lead her to victory against the empress.”

“Okay, but…I don’t really understand why you still can’t do that? Especially when we just helped her by securing a legendary weapon for her—which, I just want to say, looks just like a normal weapon to me, and I still don’t understand its significance—but if we just helped her, I don’t see why asking to help her would not result in the same sort of outcome as negotiating with her would have done.”

Vriska inhales and pushes her hair back. “That’s because, Tavros, you have no actual idea what’s happening, and you don’t understand the nuances of the situation. If I had had _my_ way, we would’ve—” She starts to rant, and you barely listen. You’re busy typing a message on your phone. Vriska’s a few minutes into her explanation when you receive a reply.

“See, look,” you say, interrupting her. You hold up your phone. “Feferi says that we’re both welcome on her ship, and that we don’t even have to be slaves or do menial labor, like what I might do on other ships. So, in other words, I think you were making a big deal about me not having any prospects for conscription, when in reality I probably just needed to do a nice favor for a friend, and receive kindness in the form of gratitude afterwards.”

Vriska sputters out some half-words that sound a little angry, and Eridan tugs your phone away from you to read your message. “You mean _you’re_ going to be traveling around Fef?” he says, glaring at you like he can barely even believe it.

“Uh, she says that’s possible, and also fine with her for it to happen.”

“Well, looks like you got your life figured out, don’t you?” Vriska says. “Suddenly Tavros of all people has all the answers! All we needed to do was just text Feferi, and we’d have it made!”

“She says you’re invited, too,” you say, taking your phone back from Eridan and holding it up for her.

“That _isn’t what I wanted!_ ” she snaps. “I’m not going to be some kind of butler or garden variety lackey! For your information, I had a much better plan in mind for Feferi’s rebellion, and it didn’t involve getting part-time sympathy work behind the curtains!”

You frown, but after a moment of thinking, you just shrug. “I think, by the sounds of it, your plan still sucked, and I’m happy with this arrangement.”

“Well, good for you, pupa. I’m not.”

“No one likes a sore loser,” you say, grinning cheekily at her. She narrows her eye.

“Just get me a ride home. I have a whole host of new irons in my fire that I have to deal with.”

You start to almost feel bad again, but you remember all the times she left you to shuffle home after losing a campaign and throw away the bad feelings. Instead of calling up a slimy sea monster for her, you locate an airborne beast and summon it over to you. She climbs up on it and sends you a smoldering glare that seems strangely soft around the edges.

“Don’t think this is the last time you’ll see me, pupa,” she says. “Adulthood’s just going to get harder.”

“Uh…” you say. You can’t tell if that sounds like a promise, a warning, or a threat, and you’re just as confused about your feelings towards it. You think that pretty much summarizes your relationship with her. You sigh. “Okay. I hope you get everything figured out, with your new irons and future plans.”

“I always do,” she says breezily. You take that as a cue to send the beast on its way. You watch her fly away, a lot of mixed feelings in your gut. Now, it’s just you and Eridan on the island, sitting in the sand. You glance at him. He scowls at you and pushes himself to his feet.

“So you’ll be with Feferi from now on,” he says. It’s worded like a question, but it doesn’t sound like one.

“I…guess that that’s now something that’s true,” you say. You look up at him hopefully. You don’t really know what you’re hopeful for.

“And we’re kismeses,” he says. The word makes your blood pusher throb.

“Uh, according to the facts we established on the ship, that’s also true,” you say.

“Then expect to see me around,” he says. He turns on his heels and walks towards the oceans, and you scramble to your feet.

“Wait, uh, that’s it?” you ask. “You’re just…going to leave?”

“What else am I going to do?” he asks, pointing at the horizon. The glow is starting to get dangerously warm. “This has been the longest night of my fuckin’ life. I’m going to go to my hive and sleep.”

You don’t know why you’re so disappointed when the things he’s saying make so much sense. “Oh. Okay,” you say. He eyes you, and you try to keep your face blank and tough.

“What else do you want?” he asks, and you can tell by the way he asks that he knows the answer already.

“Uhhh…it’s just that…I won.”

“And you want your _reward_.”

“Uh…”

“You know what kinda precedence you’re gonna be settin’ up if you’re askin’ for this sort of prize whenever one of us bests the other.”

“Uhhhh…you don’t look like you mind the idea very much.”

To your surprise, he smirks. “Fine. Call up one of your beasts and follow me to my hive.”

Your pump biscuit skips a beat, and you call up the fiercest beast in the area to be your victory steed.


End file.
